Robert Mearns Yerkes

Born in 1876 and educated at Harvard, Robert Mearns Yerkes became an American psychologist known for research on comparative psychology, mental testing, and the behavior of primates. He taught at Harvard and later served at Yale, where his name became closely associated with primate research.

Yerkes played an important role in bringing the study of animal minds and behavior into mainstream academic psychology. He also helped organize large-scale intelligence testing during World War I, a part of his career that remains historically significant and often debated because of how such testing was used and interpreted.

He died in 1956, but his influence lasted through the institutions and research programs he helped build, especially in psychobiology and primate studies.