Shirley C. Strum
Shirley Carol Strum (born September 11, 1947) is a
primatologist,
conservationist and author. In 1972, as a graduate student, she began a study of olive
baboons (''papio anubis'') in
Kenya that is ongoing and among the longest wildlife field studies on record. Her findings changed scientific and popular perceptions of baboons by testing assumptions about the male and female dominance hierarchies, male aggression, social conduct and troop structure, and the baboon mind. Strum became convinced that baboons think tactically and possess the ability to make good and even bad decisions—ideas once viewed as unorthodox, now considered mainstream. She is
emerita professor of anthropology at
UC San Diego and teaches each spring, but lives mainly in Kenya and remains active in the Uaso Nigiro Baboon Project.
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