Dr. Jennifer Penner, associate professor of psychology at Hendrix College, will be the guest lecturer for the Marie Wilson Howell Speaker Series at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, in the Student Services Center Auditorium at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Penner will present her research in the field of comparative psychology, “Why Isn’t Everyone Happy All of the Time? A Darwinian Approach to Understanding Mental Health.”

She will describe how an understanding of the human evolutionary environment is essential to grasping why the brain functions as it does.

As a researcher specializing in comparative psychology and animal behavior, she studies the behavioral and cognitive adaptations that underlie behavior and decision making in humans and other animals. Her research questions focus on the foraging behavior of small mammals and the mating and dating decision making of humans.

Penner received her doctorate in psychology from the University of Oklahoma and is now a Julia Mobley Associate Professor of Psychology at Hendrix.

The Marie Wilson Howell’s Speaker Series is presented by the UALR Department of Psychology.

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