Griffin, Donald R.

Griffin, Donald R. (Redfield)

(1915– ) animal behaviorist; born in Southampton, N.Y. He taught and performed research at Harvard (1938–45), moved to Cornell (1946–53), returned to Harvard (1953–65), then joined Rockefeller University (1965–86). Interested in bird and bat migration since his youth, he made major contributions to studies of echolocation in bats, and communication in animals as a means of ascertaining their cognitive processes. He was a visiting lecturer at Princeton (1987–89) before becoming an associate at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology (1989).