By Donna Kettenbach
March 2, 2001
Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has become a fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the highest recognition the organization bestows.
Sussman was honored for his "important contributions to integrating the fields of anthropology through research and training in primate behavior." He was also elected a council delegate from the AAAS's Section on Anthropology.
 Mary L. Good, presiding president of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS), congratulates Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, on being named an AAAS fellow at the group's annual meeting in San Francisco. |
Sussman, who has taught at the University since 1973, does extensive fieldwork in primate behavior and ecology in Costa Rica, Guyana, Madagascar and Mauritius. His groundbreaking study of two species was the subject of Marlin Perkins' documentary "Lemurs of Madagascar" in 1981. His research focuses on primate populations and threats to their habitats, including deforestation. Sussman is conducting a long-term study of the ring-tailed lemur's demography, ecology and social organization in Mada-gascar's Beza Mahafaly Reserve, which he co-founded.
His depth of work ranges from his popular seminar at the St. Louis Zoo on behavioral studies, teaching data collection basics for presenting research papers, to chairing a series of symposiums on the evolution of sociality for the AAAS Program on Science, Ethics, and Religion.
Sussman has published over 100 articles in scholarly journals, including Science, and has written or edited seven books. His two most recent books are part of a three-volume reference-and-textbook set titled Primate Ecology and Social Structure (one on prosimians, the second on New World monkeys and the third on Old World monkeys and apes). After the third volume is completed, the trio will be published as a single volume on free-ranging primates.
He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund and the Fulbright Scholar Program, and a number of other agencies.
Sussman is serving as editor in chief of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. He prepared the journal's historic 100th anniversary issue three years ago, which focused on race and racism. He believes that anthropologists, as cross-cultural experts in human behavior and evolution, can play a major role in addressing current racial divisiveness.
Sussman earned bachelor's (1965) and master's (1967) degrees in anthropology from the University of California-Los Angeles and graduated with a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1972.
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