Pauline Chen, M.D.
New York Times columnist and physician, author of Final Exam
Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz
Cardiologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Zoobiquity
Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz is the co-author of the bestselling book Zoobiquity, which presents a revelatory understanding of what animals can teach us about the human body and mind while redefining the boundaries of medicine. A personal and provocative speaker, Natterson-Horowitz's lectures are filled with captivating case studies.
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About Barbara Natterson-Horowitz
Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., develops bio-inspired strategies for understanding and addressing human health challenges. Her work focuses on the natural world and evolutionary biology as sources of insight for health and development. A Professor of Medicine in the UCLA Division of Cardiology and Visiting Professor in Harvard University’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, she co-directs the UCLA Evolutionary Medicine Program.
Studying a diverse range of animals in natural settings she has uncovered evolved adaptations with relevance to heart failure, sudden cardiac death, seizures, dementia, movement disorders, infertility and psychiatric conditions including anxiety, compulsive and eating disorders.
Her most recent research focuses on species-wide patterns in development across critical transitional periods of life including the adolescent to adult transition.
She is actively involved with education teaching undergraduates and graduate students at UCLA and Harvard, developing courses which use evolutionary and comparative approaches to help medical students better understand physical and mental illnesses.
Dr. Natterson-Horowitz supervises the independent research of many undergraduates and graduate students as co-director of the UCLA Evolutionary Medicine Master’s degree program, as a faculty advisor on the UC-HBCU grant, and as supervising faculty advisor for Harvard undergraduate theses.
In 2018, she first offered Coming of Age on Planet Earth, a course which uses a comparative and evolutionary frame to better understand the transition from adolescent to adult life across species.
Dr. Natterson-Horowitz studied evolutionary biology as an undergraduate and graduate student, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard. She attended UC San Francisco for medical school followed by post-graduate training at UCLA including internal medicine residency and chief residency, and cardiology fellowship with advanced training in heart failure and cardiac imaging. She has been a member of the UCLA Division of Cardiology since 1993 and served as Director of Imaging for the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Group.
In 2012, she published the New York Times bestselling book, Zoobiquity, which makes the case for a species-spanning approach to health. Zoobiquity was a Finalist in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)’s Excellence in Science Books Award, Smithsonian Top Book of 2012, Discover Magazine Best Book of 2012, and the China Times Best Book of 2012. It has been translated into seven languages and has been the common read at universities across the country.
In September 2019, Dr. Natterson-Horowitz will keynote the Nobel Assembly’s Nobel Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. The theme of the 2019 conference be the identification and application of scientific insights from the natural world to human health. In the same month, her new book, Wildhood, a comparative and phylogenetic exploration of the developmental transition from puberty to mature adulthood, was published.
Dr. Natterson-Horowitz is President-Elect of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health.
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Speaking Topics
Wildhood: Coming of Age on Planet Earth
In this talk, Dr. Natterson-Horowitz presents a new understanding of why some young individuals thrive in the adult world while others do not. Her research shows that the same four critical factors shape the destiny of every adolescent and young adult across all animal species, human cultures, and throughout evolutionary history. By studying the real lives and challenges of wild animal adolescents—presented using wildlife video and photography—she explores how these findings transform our understanding of social pressure (including on social media), privilege, sexual consent, exploitation, and becoming self-reliant in a challenging world.
This talk can be tailored for:
• Students
• Educators & School Administrators
• Psychotherapists & Medical Professionals
• ParentsZoobiquity: A Species-Spanning Look at Medical and Psychiatric Issues
Heart attacks in flamingos, breast cancer in jaguars, eating disorders in pigs, diabetes in dolphins: animals and humans get the same diseases, yet physicians and veterinarians rarely consult with one another. In this highly visual presentation, Dr. Natterson-Horowitz explains the concept of Zoobiquity and how animal and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal patients of all species. Natterson-Horowitz illustrates how connecting knowledge across disciplines can improve our physical and mental health.
This talk challenges healthcare professionals, students and patients to expand their thinking. Specific implications for medical groups in the fields of:
• Cardiology
• Oncology
• Fertility
• Dermatology
• Nutrition
• Immunology
• Sports Medicine
• Palliative care
• Geriatrics
• Psychiatry -
Video
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Praise for Barbara Natterson-Horowitz
Barbara was very well received and gave an terrific presentation. The event focused on the concept of One Health and was put together to help integrate and facilitate learning across the LMU campus. There were close to 600 students attending from medicine, veterinary medicine, nursing, pharmacy and undergrads with an interest in ecology/environmental sciences. There was a further emphasis on comparative medicine as a component of One Health and Zoobiquity is really about this discipline and the scientific rationale supporting it. Finally, she was able to talk about some of her roots and time in WVA and appreciated the efforts of LMU in promoting the Center for Animal and Human Health in Appalachia and its mission to improve animal, human and environmental health in the region. It was a very good day and a very successful conference.
— Lincoln Memorial University, Center for Animal and Human Health in AppalachiaPraise for Zoobiquity
…you will find the argument hard to resist. Plus you will have some killer dinner party gems. Who could resist the story of lemurs with erectile dysfunction, or the iguanas that ejaculate prematurely?
— New ScientistLike the best narrative nonfiction, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers…But this book is more than popular science; by combining human and veterinary medicine, the authors seek to change our view of the human place in the animal kingdom, and, with it, the way we treat illness, regardless of the species of the sufferer…vivid and illuminating.
— Politics and Prose…astute and funny…revelatory…Zoobiquity is as clarion and perception-altering as works by Oliver Sacks, Michael Pollan, and E. O. Wilson.
— BooklistGroundbreaking…essential…truly innovative…the concepts in Zoobiquity are presented so clearly and documented so extensively that they appear to have struck a chord in both the general population and the medical community
— Yale Human Animal Medicine ProjectIf common ancestors with worms, fish, and apes lie in our past, then Zoobiquity points the way to our future. The connections we share with the rest of life on our planet are a source of beauty and, in Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers’ luminous new account, the inspiration for an emerging and powerful approach to human health. Zoobiquity is a book that explodes barriers and myths all in the purpose of bettering the human condition.
— Neil Shubin, paleontologist and author of Your Inner Fish -
Books by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz
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Featured Title
Wildhood
“A lucid, entertaining account of how creatures of many kinds learn to navigate the complex world that adulthood opens.”
—Kirkus
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