Jenna Owens

Out of all the places her work has taken her, the classroom is where she’s happiest. Owens views it as a terrific honor to pass down what she’s learned to the next generation of wildlife professionals and to empower students to reach their full potential.

Growing up, Owens had a passion for reading and always thought she would be an English teacher. After taking her first biological anthropology class in college, though, she was hooked! A year later, she found herself in the rainforests of Costa Rica following monkeys and recording their behavior, and knew she had found her calling. She moved to San Antonio, Texas for her Ph.D., and along the way gained experience as both a zookeeper and a primate behaviorist in a research facility. She says her experiences and the ways in which they have shaped her as an educator can be summarized by the bell hooks quote: “Thinking is an action.” Her goal in the classroom is to empower students to actively apply what they learn to understanding the complex biological, environmental and social systems that shape the world around them.

Owens regularly presents her work at national conferences, such as the American Association of Biological Anthropologists, and regional conferences, such as the Texas Association for Biological Anthropologists. A paper for which she is the second author titled “Edge Effects and Social Behavior in Three Platyrrhines” recently received an award for being one of the most-read papers in the American Journal of Primatology for 2025.