Residence Washington, DC Citizenship USA | Nationality USA Name Katherine Ralls | |
 | ||
Alma mater Stanford University, Harvard University | ||
Katherine S. Ralls (born 1939) is an American zoologist and conservationist who is a senior research biologist at the Smithsonian Institution. She studies the behavior and genetics of endangered mammals. Two mammals that she has studied extensively are the sea otter and the San Joaquin kit fox. Her research is particularly focused on how zoos manage the genetics of captive populations of animals.
She obtained a BA in Biology from Stanford in 1960, an MS in Biology from Radcliffe College in 1962 and a PhD in Biology from Harvard in 1965. In 2005 she was granted an honorary fellowship in the Zoological Society of London.
Ralls worked on the founding of the Society for Conservation Biology in the mid-1980s and served as chairman from 2000 to 2001. In 1986, she and Jonathan Ballou, director of the Bronx Zoo, developed a national workshop on genetic management for zoo animals. She is currently a Senior Research Biologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.