Paul W. Sherman

Paul W. Sherman is a professor Emeritus at Cornell University in animal behaviour best known for his work on the social behavior of rodents (ground squirrels and naked mole rats), eusociality, and evolutionary medicine.

Biography
Sherman received his B.A. from Stanford in 1971, an M.S. in zoology from University of Michigan in 1974 and in 1976, his Ph.D. He was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at Berkeley from 1976 to 78, and taught there from 1978 to 1981. He joined Cornell faculty in 1981. In 1984 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984, and in 1985 he received tenure. He was awarded full professorship at Cornell in 1991. He was an Elected Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, and a Sigma Xi Distinguished National Lecturer. In 1996, he published work demonstrating how kin selection in the eusocial naked mole rats affects food allocation. In 2000, he published work hypothesizing that morning sickness could be an adaptation that protects the developing fetus from foodborne illnesses, some of which can cause miscarriage or birth defects, such as listeriosis and toxoplasmosis. In 2008, published work hypothesizing that allergies function as cancer protection mechanisms.