About Deena
Early training: Berkeley and beyond
Deena started her science education at UC Berkeley, where she majored in Integrative Biology (and Middle Eastern Studies). A human paleontology course she took as a junior, and a Neanderthal dig she joined the summer after her junior year, sparked her interest in human evolution. After getting her degree, she spent 4 years teaching biology at a high school near Berkeley, where she regaled her students with tales of the cave Neanderthals she excavated in France (who were thought to be cannibals).
NYU and Yale
Deena continued her studies of human evolution in a master’s program at NYU, where she investigated the teeth and genetics of an ancient population of Polynesians (also thought to be cannibals). She then went to Yale for her Ph.D., where she studied the evolution of pregnancy, periods, and labor in mammals and humans. She became interested in a type of genetic element that litters our genomes, sometimes called “selfish” DNA, which she showed facilitated the evolution of pregnancy in primates. After earning her Ph.D., she moved to the Yale School of Medicine, where she was awarded a fellowship from the National Institute of Health to continue investigating evolutionary mechanisms, in this case in the brain and human hand.
The Buck Institute
Deena is now a Senior Scientist and Writer-in-Residence in the Center for Reproductive Longevity and Equality at the Buck Institute, where she is drawing on her evolutionary background and expertise on female reproduction to investigate the evolution of menopause. She also continues working with students, teaching a science-writing course at Dominican University.
Here and Now
When Deena is not thinking about science, she and her husband are chasing after their 4 young children in the Bay Area of California. Deena’s unique and varied experiences as a biologist, mother, teacher, and writer inspired her to write a book. A Brief History of the Female Body was published in the summer of 2023.
