Elizabeth Adkins-Regan, professor emerita at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has received the Daniel S. Lehrman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology. The annual award is given to distinguished investigators in the field of neuroendocrinology, the study of how the brain regulates hormone activity.
Dr. Adkins-Regan joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor of psychology and of neurobiology and behavior in 1975. She was promoted to associate professor in 1981 and to full professor in 1988. She served as senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 2009 to 2012. Dr. Adkins-Regan retired and was conferred the title of professor emerita in 2018. She also served as a founding faculty member of the Institute for Animal Behavior at Rutgers University.
As a researcher, Dr. Adkins-Regan focuses on the neuroendocrine basis of social behavior. Her lab considers how and where hormones act in the brain to regulate behavior; how hormones contribute to the development of sex differences in behavior and mate choice; how the long-term effects of hormone action during early development shape adaptive adult behavior; and what is the role of hormones in mediating maternal effects on the adult behavior of offspring.
“Dr. Adkins-Regan embodies the spirit of Danny Lehrman, with a career of eminent scholarship and a record of outstanding mentorship of scientists at all career stages,” the society said in its announcement. “She has published over 150 articles, including pioneering studies on the contributions of aromatization in the sexual differentiation and activation of avian copulatory behavior. In addition to her research, she provided a clear synthesis of the field of behavioral neuroendocrinology in her 2005 book, Hormones and Animal Social Behavior (Princeton University Press, 2005).”
Dr. Adkins-Regan is a graduate of Cornell University where she majored in psychology. She holds a Ph.D. in physiological psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.