Sarah Till "Sally" Boysen (born March 5, 1949) is a professor of psychology at
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
.
Boysen is a primate researcher and former Director of the Chimp Center at the university.
She was selected as one of the top 50 women scientists by ''
Discover
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'' magazine in 2002.
Early life
Boysen was born on March 5, 1949, in
Sandusky, Ohio
Sandusky ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Erie County, Ohio, Erie County, Ohio, United States. Situated along the shores of Lake Erie in the northern part of the state, Sandusky is located roughly midway between Toledo, Ohio, Toledo ( wes ...
.
She has two younger brothers and two older sisters.
Research
Boysen primarily studies
chimpanzees.
She established the Comparative Cognition Project at the Ohio State University Chimpanzee Center in 1983.
Boysen's research focuses on chimpanzees' cognitive abilities in relation to intelligence, linguistics and neuroscience.
Her current research topics include animal cognitive development, social behaviors, cognition, the last of which examines animals' "numerical competence" and ability to count. Boysen has also studied how captive
lowland gorillas use tools.
Boysen has been the subject of many documentaries, including ones on the BBC, ''National Geographic Frontiers'', ''NOVA'', and ''Nature''. She has also been featured in numerous
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
specials centered around her chimpanzee studies.
Shutdown of Centre
In February 2006, her research center was shut down by Ohio State University.
The university cited lack of external funds to support the high costs of maintaining the center. The chimpanzees in the center were relocated to
Primates, Inc. in San Antonio, Texas.
Boysen filed a restraining order in February 2006 to stop the chimps from being moved to Texas, but it was denied.
Boysen claimed that Primates, Inc. did not provide proper care for the chimpanzees, and she wanted them to be sent to
Chimp Haven
Chimp Haven is a non-profit sanctuary for more than 300 chimpanzees retired from laboratory research. The sanctuary is located in Eddie D. Jones Nature Park in Keithville, Louisiana, approximately southwest of Shreveport.
History
In addition ...
in
Keithville, Louisiana
Keithville is an unincorporated community in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies to the south of Shreveport along U.S. Route 171. Although unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 71047.
History
Keithville came int ...
instead.
After the relocation, two of the chimpanzees died.
In response to the chimpanzees dying, she filed a federal lawsuit against the university, which was unsuccessful.
However, the remaining chimpanzees were relocated to Chimp Haven after the initial deaths.
See also
*
Sarah (chimpanzee) Sarah (full name Sarah Anne) (August 1959 – July 2019) was an enculturated research chimpanzee whose cognitive skills were documented in the 1983 book ''The Mind of an Ape'', by David Premack and Ann James Premack.Premack, David and Premack, Ann ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boysen, Sarah
American women psychologists
21st-century American psychologists
Ohio State University faculty
1949 births
Living people
American women academics
21st-century American women
20th-century American psychologists