Ellen Burstyn + Isabel Behncke-Izquierdo

Chilean biologist Isabel Behncke-Izquierdo compares the behavior of the wild bonobos of the Congo with human social behavior and, together with actress Ellen Burstyn, draws some intriguing conclusions about intelligence, wisdom, and what we can all learn from our fellow beings.

About the Speakers

Isabel Behncke-Izquierdo is an Oxford University-based field primatologist working on the evolutionary roots of social behavior in humans and other animals. Behncke-Izquierdo attended the University College London, Cambridge University and the University of Oxford and is originally from Chile, where she learned to love mountains and all things wild.

Ellen Burstyn‘s illustrious sixty-year acting career encompasses film, stage and television. In 1975 she became only the third woman in history to win both the Tony Award and the Academy Award in the same year, for her work in Same Time, Next Year on Broadway and the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. She has been nominated for an Academy Award five other times for The Last Picture Show (1972), The Exorcist (1974), Same Time, Next Year (1979), Resurrection (1981), and Requiem for a Dream (2000). She became a “triple crown winner” when she won her first Emmy nominations, winning for a guest appearance in Law & Order: SVU (2009) and her role in the mini-series Political Animals. In 2014 she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. Burstyn was the first woman elected president of Actors Equity Association (1982″“1985) and serves as the artistic director and co-president of the Actors Studio. She holds four honorary doctorates and lectures throughout the country on a wide range of topics. She became a national best-selling author in 2006 with the publication of her memoir, Lessons in Becoming Myself.