I spent my early years in Louisville and Indianapolis and moved to Chicago in 1957 where I attended the University of Chicago Lab School, graduating in 1963. I received my undergraduate degree from the Department of Biology at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.  In 1972 I received an M.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison studying the territorial behavior of a reef fish, “The function of poster-coloration in the Beau-Gregory, Eupomacentrus leucostictus (Pisces; Pomacentridae).”  My Ph.D. (1976) was a study of the nesting behavior of a ground-nesting wasp, “The control of nesting behavior in the great golden digger wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus (L.) (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae).” In 1977-78, with a National Science Foundation NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship, I joined the Animal Behaviour Research Group at Oxford University, UK and worked with Richard Dawkins on the economics of decision making in Sphex ichneumoneus.

I joined the Department of Biology, University of Florida in 1976 and have subsequently moved up through the ranks: Assistant Professor (1976-1981), Associate Professor (1981-1989), Professor (1989-present) and from 1997-2001 I was Chair of the Department.  In 1985-86 I held a Visiting Research Biologist position in the Department of Biology, Princeton University while on a National Science Foundation Visiting Professorship for Women. I took two sabbaticals, one in 1984 when I returned to England to continue my collaboration with Richard Dawkins and Alan Grafen and one in 1994 when I visited the Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, to work with Marc Mangel. In 1995 I was honored to receive the Animal Behavior Society Wm. C. Brown Animal Behavior Teaching Award followed by a University of Florida teaching  award in 1996. In 1995 I was elected a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and in 2008 I was elected a fellow of AAAS. In 2003 I was awarded the University of Florida Chapter of Sigma Xi Senior Research Award and I spent a very interesting two weeks as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. In 2003-4 I lived in Arlington, VA for one year while I was the Program Director of the Animal Behavior Program at the National Science Foundation.  In 2011 I retired and am now an emeritus professor. Since retiring I have continued my research on horseshoe crabs. Retirement has also given me more opportunities to travel with fascinating trips to South Africa, the Galapagos, Indonesia (including Komodo) and the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula.