Profile
Dr. Andrea Baden is an associate professor and director of the Primate Molecular Ecology Laboratory (PMEL) in the Department of Anthropology at Hunter College. She teaches courses in human evolution, primatology and primate conservation biology. Dr. Baden is also a doctoral faculty member at the CUNY Graduate Center Department of Anthropology and is a core faculty member of the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP). She also oversees fieldwork and research for the Ranomafana Ruffed Lemur Project in Madagascar.
As a biological anthropologist with research interests in primate behavior, ecology and evolutionary biology, Dr. Baden addresses research questions using an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. In this light, she combines traditional fieldwork and laboratory techniques to answer larger evolutionary questions related to primate social and reproductive strategies which she carries through the classroom. Her research primarily focuses on how landscape features—past, present and future—influence patterns of distribution, migration and genetic diversity in wild primate populations; as well as how the resulting patterns of genetic relatedness within populations and groups can help us to explain the evolution and maintenance of complex social behaviors. Dr. Baden's research has earned her numerous awards including the Feliks Gross Endowment Award for Outstanding Research in the Humanities and Sciences (CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences) as well as a Fulbright Fellowship. Her work has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Primatology, Nature Scientific Reports and Animal Behaviour.
As an educator, Dr. Baden enjoys sharing her knowledge and love of learning with students in hopes that she may also inspire future generations of scientists. Outside of Hunter, she explores passions in travel, culture, and the natural world, as well as art and photography, interests that, together, have been critical to her success in academia. Above all, Dr. Baden is committed to communicating science to youth and instill a sense of stewardship in future generations of conservationists.
Dr. Baden earned her BA from the University of Miami and received both her MA and PhD from Stony Brook University.