Trinity Alumna Elizabeth Lonsdorf Joins Duke Lemur Center as New Academic Director

Duke Today

Elizabeth Lonsdorf squats next to a monkey while working in the field.
Primatologist and Duke alumna Elizabeth Lonsdorf (T '96) will join the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology and the Duke Lemur Center in this new role on Aug. 1.

Duke University has been awarded $4.4 million from The Duke Endowment for the Duke Lemur Center (DLC), including support for a newly created academic director position. Primatologist and Duke alumna Elizabeth Lonsdorf (T '96) will join the DLC and the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology in this new role on Aug. 1.

The new position fills a need identified by an interdisciplinary faculty review committee last year.  Working with Executive Director Greg Dye, Lonsdorf will be responsible for collaborating with Duke faculty and the world’s lemur specialists to clarify research priorities and galvanize greater campus-wide engagement with the DLC. Her appointment coincides with a shift in the Lemur Center’s administrative oversight to Toddi Steelman, vice president and vice provost for climate and sustainability at Duke.

“We are thrilled to welcome a researcher of Elizabeth’s stature to the Lemur Center,” said Dye. “She will expand our strengths in conservation, research in Madagascar and at the center, and public education programs by connecting us formally with science taking place all across Duke.”

Lonsdorf began studying primates as a biology and psychology double major at Duke, conducting research at the DLC on the highly endangered aye-aye’s specialized feeding technique known as percussive foraging.

There has always been a significant amount of research at the DLC, in Durham and at field sites in Madagascar. Key focal points include:

  • Conservation missions— research and community-led conservation throughout northeastern Madagascar, and a conservation breeding program at Duke focusing on Endangered and Critically Endangered species
  • Studies related to human health— including age-related cognitive decline, especially with mouse lemurs
  • Studies related to sleep and hibernation— particularly with fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, whose hibernation practices might hold a key to long-range human space flight and therapies for coma management, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and trauma recovery