People

Michelle Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany. She received her PhD from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology at Columbia University in 2011 and studies the behavioral ecology of non-human primates. Her research is focused on the energetic causes and consequences of competition among individuals, social groups, and species. She uses a multi-scale approach to disentangle hormonal mechanisms, ecological constraints, and demographic processes. She is the Director and founder of the Ngogo Monkey Project, based in Kibale National Park in Uganda, and a Co-Director of the Anthropology Biobehavioral Laboratory in the Bioengineering Building at UCSB. As the first Black American primatologist in North America, she seeks to change how behavioral science is conducted by making it a more inclusive discipline and welcomes students from under-represented groups into her research activities.