Faculty | Susan Jenks

Susan Jenks, an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in Psychology and Biology, began teaching at Sage in fall 2001. She oversees the new and exciting interdisciplinary Biopsychology major.

Before coming to Sage, Susan received her B.A. in Biopsychology from Vassar College and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Sciences from the University of Connecticut. She has done postdoctoral work at the University of California-San Francisco and at UC-Berkeley, where she was an NRSA postdoctoral fellow. Her research has included social behavior and mating in timber wolves; development of social behavior and stress response in spotted hyaenas (see photo); conservation genetics of the red wolf; and phylogenetics of the Hyaenidae.

She has worked in a variety of educational settings including the Bronx Zoo and a county level environmental education nature center, and she managed an evolutionary genetics lab at the UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology.

Susan teaches Biopsychology, the Biopsychology Senior Seminar, Special Topics in Biopsychology (Sex, stress and strategy: the evolution of reproductive behavior will be offered in Fall 2002), Introductory Psychology, and other courses in both Psychology and Biology.

Susan loves learning and teaching about behavior and the natural world, whether from the perspective of the estimated 100 trillion neuronal connections of the brain, to the role of kin selection in the evolution of social behavior, to the remarkable endocrinology of the female spotted hyaena.

Her current research involves stress hormone profiles in neonatal and juvenile spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta), and phylogenetics of the Hyaenidae.

Other interests include "hanging out" with her young daughter, volunteering time in local schools for environmental education and science projects, many outdoor activities, dance for fitness (as opposed to performance), and learning the piano.

Selected publications:

Jenks, S. M. and Werdelin, L. (1998). Taxonomy and systematics of living hyaenas (Family Hyaenidae). In: M.G.L. Mills and H. Hofer (compilers), Hyaenas status survey and conservation action plan. IUCN/SSC Hyaena Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. vi+154 pp.

Jenks, S. M., Weldele, M., Frank, L. & Glickman, S. (1995). Acquisition of matrilineal rank in captive spotted hyaenas: Emergence of a natural social system in peer-reared animals and their offspring. Animal Behaviour, 50, 893-904.

Wayne, R. K., & Jenks, S. M. (1991). Mitochondrial DNA analysis implying extensive hybridization of the endangered red wolf (Canis rufus). Nature, 351, 565-568.