#078 - Erin Kinnally: What Monkeys Teach Us About Stress and Resilience

About this episode

Erin Kinnally discusses her research on primates to understand stress and resilience in human development.

Erin Kinnally is a biological psychologist and core scientist at the California National Primate Research Center. Her work explores how early life experiences—like maternal care or social stress—can shape biology, behavior, and even gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms. In this episode, we unpack how Erin studies primates to better understand human development, discussing the ways stress can become biologically embedded, how maternal traits like "friendliness" or "impulsivity" affect infant outcomes, and how interventions during early life may support resilience. We also dive into the ethics of primate research, the nuance of working across disciplines, and why behavioral assessments matter for both monkeys and people. For more information about this episode, see our website: https://www.discoveringacademia.com/episodes/erin-kinnally This presentation is a service of Discovering Academia, and all information presented is for commercial and informational purposes only. Discovering Academia provides no assurances as to the accuracy or completeness of the information presented and possesses no actual knowledge of any topic presented. Any opinions expressed in this…

People in this episode

Hosts: Brent Valentine, Keller Kramer

Guest: Erin Kinnally

Topics covered

• stress
• resilience
• primate research
• epigenetics
• human development
• maternal care

Keywords

• biological psychology
• maternal traits
• social stress
• infant outcomes
• behavioral assessments

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: California National Primate Research Center

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