Jenny Tung

{{short description|Evolutionary anthropologist and geneticist}} {{resume-like|date=November 2025}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = | name = Jenny Tung | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = | death_date =  | death_place = | death_cause = | region = | citizenship = | residence = | other_names = | occupation = evolutionary anthropologist | period = | known_for = | home_town = | title = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | awards = MacArthur Fellowship | website = | education = PhD, 2010, Duke University | alma_mater =  | thesis_title = Functional and Evolutionary Genetics of a Wild Baboon Population | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 2010 | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences =  | era = | discipline = | sub_discipline = | workplaces = Duke University | doctoral_students =  | notable_students =  | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced =  | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }}

'''Jenny Tung''' (Jĕn-nē tŏng) is an evolutionary anthropologist and geneticist. She is Director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a visiting professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology at Duke University. In 2019, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship,<ref name="macarthur">{{cite web|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1051/ |title=Jenny Tung |accessdate=2019-09-25 |website=MacArthur Foundation}}</ref> and in 2024, she was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Tung co-directs the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, a long-term study of wild baboons in Kenya.

==Personal life== Tung's mother and father immigrated to the United States from Taiwan and moved to Maryland and then to Delaware where they had Tung and her older sister, Wenny. Tung's father was a chemical engineer for DuPont, an American chemical company,<ref>{{Citation|title=DuPont|date=2020-02-23|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DuPont&oldid=942291397|work=Wikipedia|language=en|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref> and her mother was a teacher prior to their coming to the United States.<ref name=":15">{{Cite web|url=https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/user/login?destination=document-view%3Fp%3DAWNB%26docref%3Dnews/176344D4622CB3F8|title=User account {{!}} NewsBank|website=infoweb.newsbank.com|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref> Upon starting her undergraduate career at Duke University, Tung studied biology with the intent to become a physician, but she discovered her passion lay more in evolutionary biology after a taking a course on forging social ideals during her first semester.

== Education == Tung earned a bachelor's degree in 2003 from Duke University. She remained at Duke for her graduate studies, obtaining a PhD in 2010. After a postdoc at the University of Chicago, she came back to Duke University to work as a professor in the field of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology.<ref name=":03">{{Cite web|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1051/|title=Jenny Tung - MacArthur Foundation|website=macfound.org|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref> Tung founded the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in 2022.

== Research == thumb|Two yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus), the species from the study found in Amboseli. Her research is helping to provide a better understanding for how health, lifespans, and fitness are all affected by social and environmental stressors.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://today.duke.edu/2018/12/baboon-sexes-differ-how-social-status-gets-under-skin|title=Baboon Sexes Differ in How Social Status Gets 'Under the Skin'|website=today.duke.edu|date=17 December 2018 |language=en|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref> Tung's research is focused on primates, but also extends to other social mammals.<ref name=":03"/> Tung discovered that the social environment of primates doesn't just influence the physical health and behavior of an individual, but also affects gene regulation.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|url=http://www.tung-lab.org/research.html|website=tung-lab.org|access-date=2020-04-03}}</ref> In a different study, she researched the same idea, but in more competitive environments such as wild meerkats.<ref name=":6" /> She also looked into how the different social environments affected the rest of the individual's life in terms of: social status, relationships with others, and behavior.<ref name=":6" /> She has conducted and contributed to many other projects. Jenny Tung's most cited paper according to Google Scholar is "Social environment is associated with gene regulatory variation in the rhesus macaque immune system". Published in 2012, the paper has been cited by fields ranging from human genomics to bioethics.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EkxYj78AAAAJ&hl=en|title=Jenny Tung - Google Scholar Citations|website=scholar.google.com|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref>

== Awards == {| class="wikitable" |+ !Award name !Year !Institution |- |Primate Genomics Initiative Graduate Student Fellowship <ref name=":15"/> |2009 |Duke University |- |Katherine Goodman Stern Dissertation Year Fellowship <ref name=":15"/> |2009 |Duke Graduate Program |- |Chicago Fellows Post-Doctoral Fellowship<ref name=":15"/> |2010 |University of Chicago |- |Nominated for Duke Postdoctoral Mentoring Award<ref name=":15"/> |2013 |Duke University |- |Sloan Research Fellows<ref name=":22">{{Cite web|url=https://sloan.org/past-fellows|title=Past Fellows|website=sloan.org|access-date=2020-02-25|archive-date=2018-03-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180314000756/https://sloan.org/past-fellows|url-status=dead}}</ref> |2016 |Alfred P. Sloan Foundation |- |MacArthur Fellows Program<ref name=":03"/> |2019 |MacArthur Fellowship |} Over the years, Tung has received multiple awards and recognitions for her research. In 2009, Tung received the Primate Genomics Initiative Graduate Student Fellowship from Duke University, and the Katherine Goodman Stern Dissertation Year Fellowship from Duke University, which provides recipients with tuition and fee coverage, as well as an annual stipend.<ref name=":15"/><ref name=":42">{{Cite web|url=https://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/people/jenny-tung|title=Jenny Tung {{!}} Evolutionary Anthropology|website=evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu|language=en|access-date=2020-02-26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gradschool.duke.edu/financial-support/find-funding/katherine-goodman-stern-fellowship|title=Katherine Goodman Stern Fellowship {{!}} Duke Graduate School|website=gradschool.duke.edu|access-date=2020-02-26}}</ref> The University of Chicago offered her the Chicago Fellows Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 2010.<ref name=":15"/> Recipients of the Chicago Fellows Post-Doctoral Fellowship receive an annual stipend as well as research funding.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu/research/chicago-fellows|title=Chicago Fellows|website=biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu|language=en|access-date=2020-02-26}}</ref> She was nominated for the Duke Postdoctoral Mentoring Award in 2013 from Duke University.<ref name=":42"/> The National Academy of Sciences and the Kavli Foundation's international Kavli Frontiers of Science program<ref name=":5">{{Cite web|url=http://www.nasonline.org/programs/kavli-frontiers-of-science/news/2015-kavli-fellows.html|title=2015 Kavli Fellows - News Release|website=nasonline.org|access-date=2020-02-26}}</ref> offered Tung the opportunity to become a Kavli Fellow in 2015.<ref name=":15"/> The Kavli Fellows present at their annual Science symposia to network and present their research and is offered to scientists under the age of forty-five.<ref name=":52">{{Cite web|url=http://www.nasonline.org/programs/kavli-frontiers-of-science/news/2015-kavli-fellows.html|title=2015 Kavli Fellows - News Release|website=nasonline.org|access-date=2020-02-26}}</ref> In 2016, Tung received the Sloan Research Fellowship in the field on Computational & Evolutionary Molecular Biology which promoted continuation of her research.<ref name=":22"/> Science News listed Tung on the ten scientists to watch list in 2018 for the up-and-coming minds of the natural sciences.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sn-10-scientists-to-watch-2018|title=The SN 10: These scientists defy limits to tackle big problems|date=2018-09-26|website=Science News|language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref> Tung was awarded the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation, which awarded her with $625,000.<ref name=":15"/><ref name=":03"/>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.tung-lab.org/ Laboratory website] *{{Google Scholar id|EkxYj78AAAAJ}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tung, Jenny}} Category:Duke University alumni Category:Duke University faculty Category:Living people Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:American geneticists Category:American women geneticists Category:American anthropologists Category:American women anthropologists Category:American women academics Category:21st-century American women Category:American people of Chinese descent Category:Scientists from Delaware Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences