DUPRI Scholar Jenny Tung, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology, and the Director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is among five Duke faculty who have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The NAS elected a total of 120 new members and 24 new international members.
Tung's research focuses on primate behavior, genetics, and evolution. Her work investigates the genetic and genomic consequences of social environmental variation in baboons, rhesus macaques, and other social mammals, as well as the role of behavior in primate hybridization.
Tung joined the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology and the Duke University Population Research Institute in 2012. Tung co-directs the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, one of the longest-running primate field sites in the world. She has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in the fields of anthropology, genetics, and biology.
In 2016, Tung was awarded a prestigious Sloan Fellowship. In 2019, she was awarded a 2019 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship -- also known as the “genius grant” -- for her work.