Robert Sapolsky
Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford neuroscientist, primatologist and author who explores stress, human behavior and free will through books, lectures and Father-Offspring Interviews.
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Latest
Robert’s happenings, collected from public sources, plus his backstory and Starbook, where fans write.
Known for
- Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will2023 · Author
Penguin Press - Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst2017 · Author
Penguin Press - Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers2004 · Author, third edition
Holt Paperbacks - A Primate’s Memoir2001 · Author
Scribner - Human Behavioral Biology2010 · Stanford lecture course
Stanford / YouTube - Father-Offspring Interviews2024 · Host with his offspring
YouTube
Overview
- From
- Brooklyn, New York
- Work
- Neuroscientist, primatologist, professor and nonfiction author
- Education
- Harvard A.B., 1978; Rockefeller Ph.D., 1984
- Fieldwork
- Began studying wild baboons in East Africa in 1978
- Book milestone
- Behave became a New York Times bestseller and won the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology
- Online series
- Father-Offspring Interviews, launched in 2024
Mini bio
How it started.
Sapolsky grew up in Brooklyn, imagining a life among gorillas. He earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard in 1978 and his Ph.D. at Rockefeller in 1984. Beginning in 1978, he also studied wild baboons in East Africa, connecting their social lives with questions about stress and health.
From research to readers.
His research examines how stress can damage the brain. His books bring those questions to a wider audience: Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers explains the stress response, while A Primate’s Memoir tells the story of his years studying baboons in Kenya. His recorded Stanford course, Human Behavioral Biology, gives online viewers a way into the science behind behavior.
The books fans discuss.
Behave became a New York Times bestseller and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology. In Determined, published in 2023, he develops his argument that biology and environment leave no room for free will, then asks how that view could change punishment, responsibility and compassion.
A family conversation.
In March 2024, he began Father-Offspring Interviews, answering audience questions with one of his offspring. The series moves between neuroscience, fieldwork stories and everyday curiosities. Alongside it, he remains a Stanford professor of biology, neurology and neurosurgery.
Creditschronological, newest first
Books
- 2023Determined: A Science of Life Without Free WillAuthor
- 2017Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and WorstAuthor
- 2004Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, third editionAuthor
- 2001A Primate’s MemoirAuthor
Online teaching and interviews
- 2024Father-Offspring InterviewsHost
- 2010Human Behavioral BiologyStanford lecturer; course recording
Awards
Quotes
Intuition is a pretty lousy litmus test for deciding how the world works.Robert Sapolsky, From Our Neurons to Yours
In a December 2024 conversation with Nicholas Weiler, he explained why the feeling of making a free choice does not settle the question of free will.
Trivia
- As a child, he imagined growing up to become a mountain gorilla, a story he tells at the start of A Primate’s Memoir.
- The first Father-Offspring Interviews episode pairs questions about religiosity and anxiety with his favorite dessert and desert.
- His Human Behavioral Biology opening lecture was recorded in March 2010 and uploaded by Stanford in February 2011.
Find Robert
Watch his questions-and-answers series, listen to the podcast, or explore his Stanford work.
Are you Robert Sapolsky?
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