Con Slobodchikoff is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, and president and CEO of Animal Communications Ltd. He received both his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a visiting professor at Kenyatta University, Kenya, where he studied the behavior of hyraxes, and he was a Fulbright Fellow. He has spent twenty-five years studying the behavior of prairie dogs, concentrating on decoding their language-like communication system and describing their social system.

He is director of the Animal Language Institute, which disseminates information about animal language studies around the world. He has written or edited five books and has authored more than 100 articles in scientific journals. His most recent book, Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals, was published in 2012 by St. Martin's Press.