Dr. Jennifer Smith, Biology, October 8, 2025

Jennifer Smith is an associate professor in Biology. She earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University, conducted postdoctoral research at UCLA, and taught on the faculty at Mills College for a decade before joining the UW-Eau Clare faculty in Fall 2022. Her recent career awards for excellence in teaching and mentoring include those from the Animal Behavior Society and Phi Beta Kappa. Smith is a behavioral ecologist whose research integrates perspectives from evolutionary biology, animal behavior, genetics, physiology and urban ecology. Smith is internationally recognized for her comparative research on social lives of mammals. As leader of the Long-term Study on the Behavioral Ecology of California ground squirrels, Smith's team of undergraduates—also known as Team Squirrel--combines naturalistic observations with field experiments, molecular analyses, and social network statistics to test evolutionary theory.