Robert Sapolsky received his B.A. in biological anthropology summa cum laude from Harvard University and subsequently attended Rockefeller University where he received his Ph.D. in Neuroendocrinology working in the lab of Bruce McEwen, a world-renowned endocrinologist.

Sapolsky is currently the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, holding joint appointments in several departments, including Biological Sciences, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery.

A neuroendocrinologist, he has focused his research on issues of stress and neuronal degeneration, as well as on the possibilities of gene therapy strategies for protecting susceptible neurons from disease. Currently, he is working on gene transfer techniques to strengthen neurons against the disabling effects of glucocorticoids. Sapolsky also spends time annually in Kenya studying a population of wild baboons in order to identify the sources of stress in their environment, and the relationship between personality and patterns of stress-related disease in these animals. More specifically, Sapolsky studies the cortisol levels between the alpha male and female and the subordinates to determine stress level. An early but still relevant example of his studies of olive baboons is to be found in his 1990 Scientific American article, "Stress in the Wild".

Although born into a devout Orthodox Jewish family, Sapolsky is an atheist.

Sapolsky has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship genius grant in 1987, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience. He was also awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award and the Young Investigator of the Year Awards from the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Psychoneuro-Endocrinology, and the Biological Psychiatry Society.

In 2007, he received the John P. McGovern Award for Behavioral Science, awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 2008, he received the Wonderfest’s Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.

Books

• Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death (MIT Press, 1992) ISBN 0-262-19320-5
• Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers (1994, Holt/Owl 3rd Rep. Ed. 2004) ISBN 0-8050-7369-8
• The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament (Scribner, 1997) ISBN 0-684-83891-5
• Junk Food Monkeys (Headline Book Publishing, 1997) ISBN 978-0747276760
• A Primate's Memoir (Touchstone Books, 2002) ISBN 0-7432-0247-3
• Monkeyluv : And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals (Scribner, 2005) ISBN 0-7432-6015-5

Journal articles