Dr. Robert Morris Sapolsky

Primatologist and Neuroendocrinologist

Born: April 6, 1957 - Brooklyn, NY
Not Deceased
Dr. Robert Sapolsky
Dr. Sapolsky studies baboons in the summer
photographer: JOHN HEMINWAY

Background

Education

Professor Sapolsky, as a child he lived in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He was inspired by visits to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. He attended John Dewey High School in Coney Island. He achieved A.B. Summa Cum Laude in biological anthropology at Harvard. He got a PhD in neuroendocrinology from Rockefeller University. He did research in Nairobi, Kenya.

Career

Dr. Sapolsky works as a professor at Stanford. He studies baboons in Africa. He’s published several books. He’s published research articles and journals. At Stanford he works in a lab. In Africa he works in the bush collecting baboon blood samples.

Contributions

Dr. Sapolsky discovered how some diseases are related to stress. He studies gene transferring that strengthens neurons. He identified stress in the baboons’ environment. The dominance hierarchy in baboons causes stress. The stress causes diseases in baboons like it does people. He also studied how the toxo parasite takes over rat brains.

Online Magazine Publications

Nautilus: Issue 015
Dude, Where’s My Frontal Cortex?
There’s a method to the madness of the teenage brain.

by Robert Sapolsky
illustration by John Hendrix
July 24, 2014
Scientific American 319, 5, 62-67
How Economic Inequality Inflicts Real Biological Harm
The growing gulf between rich and poor inflicts biological damage on bodies and brains

by Robert M. Sapolsky
November 1, 2018