Patty Brennan
Patricia Brennan | |
---|---|
Alma mater | Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano (BSc) Cornell University (PhD) |
Awards | National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2021) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions | |
Doctoral advisor | Stephen Emlen Paul Sherman |
Other academic advisors | Richard Prum Tim Birkhead |
Website | http://www.pattybrennan.com/ |
Patricia "Patty" Brennan is a Colombian and American evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist. She is a professor of biology at Mount Holyoke College,[1] and her research focuses on sexual selection, sexual conflict, and genital coevolution in vertebrates.[2]
Brennan's work on the genital morphology of waterfowl, particularly her research on duck penises and her discovery of variations in duck vaginas,[2] has received extensive press coverage in publications like The New York Times,[3][4] The Guardian,[5] National Geographic,[6] and Scientific American.[7] Her work on snake and dolphin clitorises has been featured in publications such as The Atlantic,[8] Smithsonian Magazine,[9] New Scientist,[10] and The Washington Post.[11] She is an advocate for basic science,[12][13] as well as for further research into vertebrate vaginas.[14][15][16]
Early life and education
Brennan was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She completed her Bachelor of Science in marine biology at the Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano in 1994.[2] In 2005, she received her Doctor of Philosophy in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University, where she studied the reproductive biology of the great tinamou at the La Selva Biological Station.[17] While conducting field research, she observed a corkscrew-shaped tinamou penis[2] and wrote a post-doctoral project on bird genitalia after identifying a lack of research on the subject.[18]
Career
From 2005 to 2008, Brennan held a joint postdoctoral appointment at the University of Sheffield and Yale University, where she continued her research on the great tinamou[19] and begin studying duck genitalia with Richard Prum and Tim Birkhead.[2] After she received funding from the National Science Foundation to study duck penises, she was attacked by right-wing media for what was characterized as "wasteful" government spending.[20] In response, she defended her work and the broader importance of basic research in the online magazine Slate[12] and in the journal BioScience,[13] and she began campaigning to support other scientists who dealt with similar attacks.[21] She worked at Yale until 2009, after which she joined the University of Massachusetts Amherst as a research professor.[22] Brennan joined the biological sciences faculty at Mount Holyoke College in 2015.[23] In 2021, she received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to study reproductive structures in snakes.[24] In 2022, Brennan was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her contributions to biological sciences.[25]
External media
- In 2012, Brennan made an appearance in a PBS miniseries on sexual selection in the episode "What Males Will Do".[26]
- In 2017, Brennan was featured in the XX Files video series by Science.[27]
References
- ^ "Patty Brennan". Mount Holyoke College. Archived from the original on 2022-12-14.
- ^ a b c d e Brennan, Patricia (2020-10-05). "Patricia Brennan". Current Biology. 30 (19): R1064–R1066. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.071. ISSN 0960-9822. PMC 7534590. PMID 33048049.
- ^ Zimmer, Carl (2007-05-01). "In Ducks, War of the Sexes Plays Out in the Evolution of Genitalia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2022-12-06.
- ^ Zimmer, Carl (2013-06-06). "The Sex Life of Birds, and Why It's Important". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2013-06-06.
- ^ Sample, Ian (2009-12-22). "Video reveals twists and turns of genital warfare in ducks". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2013-09-08.
- ^ Goodman, Jason G. (2017-09-19). "Duck Penises Grow Bigger Among Rivals". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 2021-02-26.
- ^ "Clash of the Duck Genitalia". Scientific American. 2007-05-02. Archived from the original on 2021-12-02.
- ^ Wu, Katherine J. (2022-12-14). "Surprise! Snakes Have Clitorises". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2022-12-14.
- ^ Osborne, Margaret (2022-12-14). "Scientists Discover That Snakes Have Clitorises". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-12-14.
- ^ Hamzelou, Jessica (2022-01-10). "What dolphins reveal about the evolution of the clitoris". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 2022-11-20.
- ^ Brulliard, Karin (2017-05-02). "Dolphin sex is literally kinky". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2017-05-02.
- ^ a b Brennan, Patricia (2013-04-02). "Why I Study Duck Genitalia". Slate. Archived from the original on 2022-12-08.
- ^ a b Brennan, Patricia L.R.; Irschick, Duncan J.; Johnson, Norman; Albertson, R. Craig (2014-02-06). "Oddball Science: Why Studies of Unusual Evolutionary Phenomena Are Crucial". BioScience. 64 (3): 178–179. doi:10.1093/biosci/bit039.
- ^ Salas, Javier (2022-03-07). "'Many scientists have studied penises, but there is an incredible gap in our understanding of vaginas'". El País English Edition. Archived from the original on 2022-12-10.
- ^ Gross, Rachel E. (2022-03-31). "Why Have Female Animals Evolved Such Wild Genitals?". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-11-20.
- ^ Cooke, Lucy (June 2022). Bitch: On The Female Of The Species (1 ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books. p. 103. ISBN 9781541674899. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
- ^ Brennan, Patricia L. R. (2009). "Incubation in Great Tinamou (Tinamus major)". The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 121 (3): 506–511. doi:10.1676/08-073.1. ISSN 1559-4491. JSTOR 20616938. S2CID 86683863.
- ^ "Patricia Brennan, Biological Sciences". Mount Holyoke College. 2019-01-01. Archived from the original on 2022-12-28.
- ^ Marshall, Michael (2010-07-14). "Zoologger: Eggs with an 'eat me' sign". New Scientist.
- ^ Baako, Ann. "Patricia Brennan wants you to consider the duck penis". Mount Holyoke News. Mount Holyoke News. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
- ^ Brennan, Patricia. "Research". Patty Brennan. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
- ^ "Patricia L. R. Brennan : Department of Biology : UMass Amhest". UMass Amherst. 2011-05-24. Archived from the original on 2022-10-05.
- ^ "Patricia Brennan | Mount Holyoke College". Mount Holyoke College. Archived from the original on 2016-12-22.
- ^ "NSF Award Search: Award # 2042260 - CAREER: INTEGRATING FORM AND FUNCTION IN THE COEVOLUTION OF COPULATORY TRAITS". National Science Foundation. 2021-04-30.
- ^ "2022 AAAS Fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)". www.aaas.org. Archived from the original on 2023-02-14.
- ^ "What Males Will Do". PBS. 2012-03-14. Archived from the original on 2014-12-05.
- ^ "Animalia genitalia : Patty Brennan". Science. 2017-01-17.