Dr. Karen B. Strier is Vilas Research Professor and Irven DeVore Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her PhD from Harvard University, and is an international authority on the endangered northern muriqui monkey, which she has been studying in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest since 1982. She has trained more than 90 Brazilian students on her project.

She served as president of the International Primatological Society from 2016-2022. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She has chaired committees and served in leadership roles within these and other professional societies. As chair of the Temporary Nominating Group in her NAS class, she worked to increase diversity in the membership of NAS.  She also served two 3-year terms on the Board of International Scientific Organizations (BISO), also within NAS.

A distinguished primatologist and conservationist, she has received numerous awards including the Distinguished Primatologist Award from the American Society of Primatology, Honorary Lifetime memberships in the Sociedade Brasliera de Primatologia and the Sociedade Latin Americana de Primatologia, an Honorary Doctorate of Sciences from the University of Chicago, the Prêmio Muriqui from the Conselho Nacional da Reserva Biosfera da Mata Atlantica, and the Excellence in Primate Conservation Award from the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation. Her pioneering, long-term field research has been critical to conservation efforts on behalf of the muriqui, and has been influential in shaping comparative perspectives on primate behavioral and ecological diversity more broadly