Elissa Jacobs loved primates from a young age, but it wasn’t until she was in college that she realized primates could be a career and not just a hobby. Since then, her passion for primates has found her talking with Washoe the chimpanzee in American Sign Language, tracking nocturnal lepilemurs through the Malagasy forest, laughing when a baby aye-aye jumped on her head, and getting her shirt unbuttoned by a capuchin monkey. The more she learns about primates, the more she loves them and everything they have to teach us. One of her biggest pet peeves is when people refer to apes as monkeys (hint: apes don’t have tails!).

Elissa has a BA in biology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Duke University, with a focus on primate behavior and evolutionary theory. She has two decades of teaching experience in the field; she currently teaches first-year writing courses on evolutionary topics, including “Darwinian Dating: The Evolution of Human Attraction” and “The Biology of Morality” (Brandeis University 2017-present; Harvard University 2009-2017). She is currently querying her monkey-infused memoir, DARWINIAN DATING: A MEMOIR OF LOVE AND MONKEYS.

Elissa lives in the Boston area with her husband and 11-year-old daughter; raising a child is sometimes remarkably similar to spending time with a monkey.