Vanessa Woods is a New York Times best-selling author, researcher and journalist. She is the author of the New York Times Best Seller The Genius of Dogs (Dutton 2013), and Bonobo Handshake (Gotham 2010), which won the Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Award. Vanessa has written hundreds of popular science articles and has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, National Geographic, New Scientist and BBC Wildlife. A Research Scientist at Duke University since 2005, Vanessa has worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo studying bonobos, and the People's Republic of Congo studying chimpanzees. Vanessa is interested in comparing the cognition of bonobos and chimpanzees, and learning what bonobos can tell us about becoming a more peaceful species. Vanessa is also the co-founder of www.dognition.com, a website that involves the community in citizen science by evaluating and comparing the cognition of dogs.
