Patricia Wright

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For the actress of the same name, see Patricia Wright (actress).

Patricia Wright, a conservationist and leading lemur expert, is currently a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is a member of the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. Wright, who received her B.S. from Hood College and her Ph.D. from the City University of New York, worked as a social worker in Brooklyn, New York before beginning her prodigious career as a primatologist in 1986. She and her first husband deparated during her second week of studies at the City University of New York. Her second husband is Jukka Jernvall, a biologist from Finland. She has conducted 20 years of field research on the demographic and behavioral patterns of lemurs in Madagascar, with specific interest in Propithecus edwardsi (Milne-Edwards' Sifaka). She is credited, along with a German researcher, with the discovery of the Golden Bamboo Lemur while conducting research in Ranomafana, Madagascar in 1986 and the establishment of the independent Centre ValBio research station in Ranomafana. In 1991 Wright successfully lobbied for the creation of the 108,000 acre Ranomafana National Park. While on the faculty at Duke University she was the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and in 1995 was awarded Madagascar's National Medal of Honor.