Zuleyma Tang-Martinez

Zuleyma Tang-Martinez (born in Venezuela, March 9, 1945) is a Latina Professor Emeritus in Biology at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis. She is well known for her research in animal behavior and in how animals recognize family members. She studies these behaviors in mice, voles, gerbils, and capybaras. Without her research, we would not know much about chemical communication between mammals.
Early life.
Tang-Martinez was born in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela.
She has two younger sisters. Yajarayama Tang-Feldman is now a researcher at the University of California, Davis School of Nursing. Morayma Tang-Martinez lives in Venezuela.
Her father was an accountant. He worked for American oil companies in Venezuela. The companies were all drilling for oil near rainforests. They moved to a new camp every few years. Tang-Martinez liked to observe capybaras and other animals from the rainforest.
When she was seven, Tang-Martinez's family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. She lived there for two years.
Later in his life, her father suffered from Alzheimer's Disease.
Education.
Tang-Martinez returned to the United States for high school. The oil camps' schools did not have high school.
She studied biology at Saint Louis University. She graduated in 1967.
At University of California, Berkeley, Tang-Martinez studied Zoology (M.A., 1970; Ph.D. 1976). In graduate school Tang-Martinez developed the "habituation-discrimination technique" to measure how animals communicate using smell.
She did two more years of research at the University of British Columbia before working as an assistant professor at University of Missouri, St. Louis.
Career.
Tang-Martinez was on the faculty of University of Misouri-St. Louis from 1976-2014. In 2014 she retired.
Tang-Martinez studies social behavior in animals. Animals create chemicals and use the chemicals' smells to communicate with other animals.
With B. Diane Chepko-Sade, she edited a book about how animals spread out over the land where they live in order to mix up gene pools. It is called "Mammalian Dispersal Patterns: The Effects of Social Structure on Population Genetics."
Tang-Martinez was chair of the Division of Animal Behavior fir the American Society of Zoologists from 1990-1992. She was president of the Animal Behavior Society from 1993-1994. She won the Animal Behavior Society Exceptional Service Career Award and the Quest Award for Outstanding Research Contributions. Tang-Martinez received the Woman Trailblazer Award in 2008.
Advocacy.
Tang-Martinez was a volunteer for the Alzheimer's Association beginning in 1990. In 2002 she got the St. Louis Chapter's Volunteer of the Year Award.
She also founded the Privacy Rights Education Project. That organization fought for LGBT rights. As it grew to cover the state of Missouri, it changed its name to PROMO. Tang-Martinez and her female partner, Arlene Zarembka wanted to get married. In 2013 they applied for money that married people get from Social Security when one person retires. The state of Missouri said no.
Tang-Martinez was both the first woman and the first Latinx individual to become a full professor in her department.
Tang-Martinez wants many different kinds of people to be Animal Behavior Scientists. She founded the Latin American Affairs Committee, the Turner Undergraduate Diversity Program, and the Diversity Fund when she was president of the Animal Behavior Society. That fund helps students from underrepresented group attend conferences.
Personal life.
Tang-Martinez is married to Arlene Zarembka. She enjoys Tai chi chuan, birding, hiking, taking pictures, and collecting stamps and art.