NAU biologist receives lifetime achievement award

An NAU biology professor who has spent more than 40 years studying and teaching about animal behavior is receiving a lifetime achievement award.

Lee Drickamer is receiving the 2010 Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Award from the Animal Behavior Society for his research and contributions to understanding animal activities and habits.

“I am very pleased that my being selected as a distinguished animal behaviorist is based on a variety of factors,” Drickamer said.

His research has delved into animal mate selection and how urinary pheromones affect the development of different species. He has coauthored two textbooks and has contributed to more than 200 publications. He also was president of the Animal Behavior Society, editor of the Animal Behaviour journal and served as the secretary general for the International Council of Ethologists. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

“I have contributed significantly to empirical approaches to animal behavior,” he said. “My emphases have been on conducting long sequences of logical experiments and with a concern about the methods that we employ in terms of statistics and experimental design.”

Drickamer, who recently retired from NAU after 11 year of teaching, will receive the award and present the plenary address during the Animal Behavior Society annual meeting at the College of William and Mary in Virginia this July.

“My plenary lecture will deal with the path that animal behavior is likely to follow in the coming decade,” he said.