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Jeanne Altmann, born March 18, 1940, in New York City,Pamela Kalte etal., American Men and Women of Science, Thomson Gale 2005 is a Eugene Higgins Professor Emeritus of animal behavior and physiology at Princeton University. She is known for her research on the social behaviour of baboons, contributions to contemporary primate behavioural ecology, and for "revolutionizing" field-sampling methodology. Her paper in 1974 on the observational study of behaviour is a cornerstone for ecologists and has been cited over 20,000 times. She is a founder and Director Emerita of the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, a former Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society (2020).
Using her mathematics background, she was employed as a data analyst in a lab studying human childhood. It was with her background in mathematics that her best known paper was written in 1974; it has been cited over 20,000 times as of October 14, 2025.
Altmann is known for her involvement with the creation and development of the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, Amboseli Baboon Research Project. Accessed January 23, 2015. which counts its official start in 1971, following a preliminary field study in 1963-4. In 1981, Altmann worked to "Africanize" the Amboseli Baboon Project by hiring local people in positions of authority. Instead of relying on a rotating group of Western researchers, Altmann hired a member of the local Maasai community and other Kenyans to make observations, manage lab samples, and educate assistants year-round. According to historian Georgia M. Montgomery, Altmann's directorship of the Baboon Project and her extensive publication record have "led to her status as a leader in animal behavior studies."Montgomery, G. (2015). p112.
This was not the extent of Altmann's influence. In a 1974 article for Behaviour, "Observational Study of Behavior: Sampling Methods," Altmann reviewed the current standardized data collection methods. For example, focal sampling was a method in which scientists observed individual animals for a set period of time and noted its actions, even if the actions seemed insignificant. (Robert Sapolsky discussed using this sampling method in his popular memoir about life baboon life.) Before 1974, most field researchers did not pay much attention to how the method used to observe animals impacted the kinds of data collected. But according to historians, Altmann's paper initiated a revolution in field studies, helping protect against individual bias and making comparative studies easier.
She was awarded the Sewall Wright Award in 2013 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Primatological Society in 2014. In her area of study, Altmann's fieldwork employs observational rather than experimental sampling methods. This allows her to follow the behaviour of baboons in their natural environment. She utilizes mainly non-invasive techniques. The ABRP also collects fecal samples for genetic, hormonal, and intestinal bacterial analyses.
Altmann's research specifically looks at the behavioural ecology of baboons that range in and near Amboseli National Park, Kenya. With collaborators Susan Alberts, Elizabeth Archie, and Jenny Tung, Altmann's research interests have included demography, the mother-infant relationship, behavioral ecology and endocrinology, the evolution of social behavior, aging, sexual selection, disease ecology, and functional genomics. She was one of the first researchers to study primate mothers, and studies the effects of genes on parenting and mating.
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