Patricia Wright is one of fifteen prominent scholars in the liberal arts and sciences selected to serve as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar during the 2016-2017 academic year.
Wright, a primatologist, is Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University and founder of Centre ValBio research station at Ranomafana National Park, where work is being done to protect Madagascar’s unique and biologically diverse ecosystems.
She has made major contributions in the biology, ecology, conservation, and behavior of living primates, especially the Malagasy lemurs. In 2014 she was awarded the Indianapolis Prize, the world’s leading award for animal conservation. A member of the American Philosophical Society, she has received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Hauptman-Woodward Pioneers of Science Award, and the Distinguished Primatologist Award of the American Society of Primatologists.
Her books include Madagascar: Forests of Our Ancestors (Biotope, 2010), High Moon Over the Amazon: My Quest to Understand the Monkeys of the Night (Lantern Books, 2013), and For the Love of Lemurs: My Life in the Wilds of Madagascar (Lantern Books, 2014). The 3D IMAX film Island of Lemurs: Madagascar (2014) features her work.
To learn more about the Visiting Scholar Program, write to Kathy Navascues, knavascues@pbk.org.
Photo: Patricia Wright—shouldering a lemur—rang the New York Stock Exchange Closing Bell on May 15, 2014. Courtesy: National Science Foundation.