Beth Archie
Professor of Biology
Professor Beth Archie leads one of the longest-running studies of wild primates in the world, the baboons of the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya. She works with these animals to understand the importance of animal and human social lives.
For animals, social relationships help individuals for solve life’s problems (e.g., avoiding predators, finding food). In turn, societies create new problems and selective landscapes, including resource competition and disease exposure, that drive evolutionary change. In her work, she seeks to understand how animal social structures evolve and what these patterns mean for understanding human societies.
"Social environments have powerful effects on how individuals experience the world," Archie says. "From close friendships to societal structures, social interactions shape how individuals access resources, cope with the stresses of daily life, and experience disease risk. Notre Dame has been incredibly helpful to me and our Amboseli team to uncover the social lives of baboons, helping teach us what it means to be human."
Watch Beth Archie's "What would you fight for" video
