Stephen J. Suomi is chief of the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology at the

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development The ''Eunice Kennedy Shriver'' National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It supports and conducts research aime ...

(NICHD) in Bethesda, Maryland. He is also a research professor at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

, the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

, and

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. He is involved with the Experience-based Brain & Biological Development Program, launched in 2003 by the

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) is a Canadian-based global research organization that brings together teams of top researchers from around the world to address important and complex questions. It was founded in 1982 and is s ...

."Profile for Stephen Suomi"
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Suomi was elected as a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

for his contributions to the understanding of how socialization affects the psychological development of non-human

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 ...

. He worked in the early 1970s as a research assistant to psychologist Harry Harlow, showing that it was possible to rehabilitate rhesus monkeys that had been reared in social isolation for the first six months of life by temporarily housing them with socially normal monkeys. At the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

Suomi worked with

Harry Harlow Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905 – December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which manifested the importance of caregiv ...

to develop the

pit of despair The pit of despair was a name used by American comparative psychologist Harry Harlow for a device he designed, technically called a vertical chamber apparatus, that he used in experiments on rhesus macaque monkeys at the University of Wisconsin� ...

, a series of controversial and widely condemned experiments on baby monkeys that have been credited by some researchers as starting the

animal liberation movement The animal rights (AR) movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals ...

in the United States.Blum, Deborah. ''Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection''. Perseus Publishing, 2002, p. 225. Suomi has made no mention of the morality of his work.

Education and career

Suomi received a B.A. in psychology from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1968, and a Ph.D. in the same subject from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

in 1971. He became a full professor with the university's psychology department in 1984, and began to work for the NICHD in 1983.

Work

Suomi describes his current research interests as focusing on the role of genetic and environmental factors in shaping individual psychological development in non-human primates; the effect of change on psychological development; and whether findings on monkeys in captivity can translate to monkeys living in the wild, and between human beings of different cultures. Suomi has been criticized by members of the U.S. Congress for maternal deprivation experiments on monkeys. However, both the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

and the American Society of Primatologists have defended Suomi's research as scientifically useful and ethically sound.

Notes

External links

Profile for Stephen Suomi
at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (

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copy)
"Good mothers stop monkeys going bad,"
by Andy Coghlan, ''New Scientist''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Suomi, Stephen Ethologists Animal testing Living people American people of Finnish descent Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Stanford University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni National Institutes of Health people Year of birth missing (living people)

Education and career

Work

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links