Margaret “Margie” Profet has returned. In Psychology Today this month, journalist Mike Martin tells the haunting tale of a promising young evolutionary biologist who vanished without a trace. Profet won a coveted MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ in 1993 on the basis of her compelling but controversial ideas about the adaptive value of allergies, menstruation and morning sickness.

She subsequently absorbed an eclectic curricula, taking classes in physics, math, evolution and toxicology on both coasts of the United States at the University of California, Berkeley. She then moved to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for graduate studies, then West, then East, never finishing a PhD but penning several influential papers and books. After several years in the spotlight, she receded, not just from public view, but completely. She vanished. Martin had taken a physics class with Profet at the University of Washington in the 1990s. He came across some of her work in 2009 and Googled her. He was surprised to see a bare-bones Wikipedia entry with no recent updates and some debate in the discussion notes as to her whereabouts. He spent the next three years trying to track her down. Continue reading →