The Medicine of Life: Social Life and Survival in Wild Baboons
Beth Archie Ph.D., is the Nieuwland collegiate professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies the social lives of wild baboons in Kenya's Amboseli ecosystem. Her work focuses on how social relationships affect an animal's health, disease risk, and survival. Using data from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, she shows that socially connected baboons live longer and that early-life adversity can shorten their lifespan. She also shares new findings on the role of fathers in baboon societies, revealing that a strong social relationship with a father can buffer against adversity and lead to increased survival in their daughters.
Experience the Event
Presented by Department of Physics
Beth Archie Ph.D. is the Nieuwland collegiate professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies the social lives of wild baboons in Kenya’s Amboseli ecosystem. Her work focuses on how social relationships affect an animal’s health, disease risk, and survival. Using data from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, she shows that socially connected baboons live longer and that early-life adversity can shorten their lifespan. She also shares new findings on the role of fathers in baboon societies, revealing that a strong social relationship with a father can buffer against adversity and lead to increased survival in their daughters.
Meet the Faculty: Elizabeth (Beth) Archie
Beth Archie Ph.D., is the Nieuwland collegiate professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame. She is also a director of the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. Before joining the faculty at Notre Dame, she was a postdoctoral associate with Vanessa Ezenwa, and a Smithsonian Fellow with Jesus Maldonado and Rob Fleischer at the Smithsonian Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics. She holds a PhD in Biology from Duke University.