Ellen Furlong

Ellen Furlong, an Associate Professor in Psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU), received her B.A in Mathematics from Transylvania University and her PhD in Psychology from The Ohio State University. Before joining the faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University in 2013, she spent three-years as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University where she helped found the Dog Cognition Research Group, and studied rhesus monkeys at a research station on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico.

Ellen teaches an Animal Cognition course and has team-taught courses on animal cognition and animal ethics with her father, a bioethicist. She has won several teaching awards, including, in 2018, the inaugural Most Influential Professor award at IWU.

Ellen directs the IWU Dog Scientists, a research group exploring cognition in dogs and zoo animals. She has published papers and presented work at academic conferences on chimpanzee, orangutan, and dog cognition. Ellen most recently authored an Audible/Great Courses book entitled Decoding Dogs: Inside the Canine Mind.