Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an emeritus professor at the University of California, Davis, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She is the author of six books, including her trilogy beginning with Mother Nature (1999), Mothers and Others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding (2009) and concluding with Father Time (2024). Once described by Edward O. Wilson as “the leading authority on motherhood, (and) also, to the benefit of us all, one of the best stylists now writing on any subject in science, ” her meticulous scholarship presented with the literary flare of a novelist has led to her books being selected for numerous awards including two Howells Prizes for Outstanding Contributions to Biological Anthropology, the University of California’s Panunzio Award, the Staley Prize from the School for Advanced Research and a Lifetime Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the Human Behavior and Evolutionary Society. An award for scientific reviews from the National Academy of Sciences cited “her insightful and visionary synthesis of a broad range of data and concepts from across the social and biological sciences to illuminate the importance of biosocial process among mothers, infants, and other social actors in forming the evolutionary crucible of human societies.” The mother of three children with five grandchildren, she lives with her husband Dan at Citrona Farms in northern California.