• Professor Melissa Thompson's research focuses on interactions of ecology, health, reproduction, and behavior in apes and humans.
  • Thompson is currently serving as Interim Assistant Vice President for Research at UNM and is Co-Director of the Comparative Human and Primate Physiology Center
  • Seeks to better understand the sources of variation in life history within and between species as a way of reconstructing the changes that have taken place during the evolution of the unique human life history.
  • Expert on great apes, serving on the board of directors of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term study of the ecology, behavior, and physiology of wild chimpanzees in Uganda.
  • At UNM, she co-directs the Hominoid Reproductive Ecology Laboratory, where she collaborates on a wide range of studies investigating the interactions of behavior, hormones and health in humans and non-human primates.
  • Associate Chair and Co-Director of Comparative Human and Primate Physiology Center
  • Faculty at the University of New Mexico since 2008.
  • MA from Havard University in 2000
  • Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2005.

Additional areas of interest
Primate behavior, chimpanzees, hormones and behavior, sexual behavior, reproduction

Contact
If you would like to contact this expert for a story, please call Mary Beth Stokes at (505) 277.5754, or University Communication and Marketing (UCAM) at (505) 277.5813.