Dawn Prince-Hughes (born 1964) is an American anthropologist, primatologist, and ethologist. She is the author of several books, including Gorillas Among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days and her memoir Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism, and she is the editor of the essay collection Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students with Autism. Biography Prince-Hughes was raised in Carbondale, Illinois by her mother, who was a homemaker, and her father, who was a heating and air-conditioning serviceman. In her memoir Songs of the Gorilla Nation, Prince-Hughes describes her childhood experience with symptoms of undiagnosed autism, dropping out of high school, and then becoming "technically homeless." She met the gorillas at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle for the first time at age 20, and her detailed study of the behavior of the gorillas was noticed by the zoo research director. She became employed by the zoo, and ultimately spent a total of 12 years studying the gorillas. Prince-Hughes was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at age 36. In 1987, she started working on her bachelor's degree. She completed her PhD in interdisciplinary anthropology through a distance education program at a university in Switzerland. She became an adjunct professor at Western Washington University in 2000, the same year she received her Asperger's diagnosis. Writing career Prince-Hughes has written a variety of books, including Gorillas Among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days, published in 2001, and her memoir Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism, published in 2004. She also edited and contributed to the essay collection Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students with Autism, published in 2002. Gorillas Among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days Gorillas Among Us is based on a year of observations by Prince-Hughes of a family of gorillas in a zoo. In a review for the Journal of Anthropological Research, Vicki K. Bentley-Condit writes, "This book is, indeed, an unusual approach to nonhuman primates, and it is somewhat anthropomorphic and nonscientific as well. However, Prince-Hughes did not set out to write a scientific précis of Gorilla gorilla gorilla behavior. She wants to tell a story." In a review for Booklist, Marlene Chamberlain writes, "In reading this book, it is hard not to empathize with a species often referred to as our closest relative. However scientific her observations, Prince-Hughes clearly developed a nonverbal rapport with the gorilla