Linda Ann Vigilant is an American primatologist and

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processe ...

. Vigilant works at the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (german: Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Plan ...

(MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany.

Education

Vigilant graduated from

Stevens Institute of Technology Stevens Institute of Technology is a private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey. Founded in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States and was the first college in America solely dedicated to mechanical ...

Hoboken Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,69 ...

, New Jersey with a B.S. in

chemical biology Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and ma ...

in 1986. She earned her PhD at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in California in genetics from 1986 to 1990.

Research and career

She began her career by working on the evolution of

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...

in human populations at MPI-EVA. Her work uses genetic analyses to address questions on the evolution of humans and other primates, particularly the great apes. Her research focus is on the level of individual social groups, such as examination of the effects of kinship on the social behaviour of pairs of individuals. Other studies use genotyping of entire primate populations to infer dispersal behavior and group social dynamics. Vigilant's recent research interests are using large-scale sequencing approaches for understanding the long-term histories of primate populations and seeing the effects of high variance in male reproductive success on patterns of genomic variation.

Publication positions

*''

International Journal of Primatology The ''International Journal of Primatology'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes original research papers on the study of primates. Articles published in the journal are drawn from a number of disciplines involved in primatological ...

'', editorial board member 2003–present. *''

American Journal of Physical Anthropology The ''American Journal of Biological Anthropology''Info pages about the renaming are: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/26927691/homepage/productinformation.html and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/26927691 (previously known as ...

'', associate editor 2006–2010. *''

Primates Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

'', associate editor 2007–present.

Personal life

Vigilant has been married twice, first to a fellow geneticist, and subsequently to

Svante Pääbo Svante Pääbo (; born 20 April 1955) is a Swedish geneticist who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. In 1997, he became founding dire ...

since 2008. She has two sons with her first husband and one son and a daughter with her second.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vigilant, Linda Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists 20th-century American biologists 21st-century American biologists American women geneticists American geneticists Primatologists Paleogeneticists Women primatologists Stevens Institute of Technology alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Max Planck Institutes researchers American emigrants to Germany