Habilitation in psychology at Humboldt University of Berlin in 2011
Dr. rer. nat. in psychology from Humboldt University of Berlin in 2007
Dipl.-Psych. in psychology from University of Bielefeld in 2003

Links 

• Personal homepage

Research interests

• Evolutionary genetics of individual differences, esp. in general intelligence and personality traits      
• Neurostructural indicators of intelligence and cognitive ageing, esp. associations with white matter integrity
• Links between somatometric measures of the body and face with psychological traits
• Imaging genetics
• Evolutionary psychology of mate choice, romantic relationships and sexuality, esp. using speed dating as a research design

Key Publications

• Penke, L., Valdés Hernández, M. C., Muñoz Maniega, S., Gow, A. J., Murray, C., Starr, J. M., Bastin, M. E., Deary, I. J., & Wardlaw, J. M. (2012). Brain iron deposits are associated with general cognitive ability and cognitive aging. Neurobiology of Aging, 33, 510-517.
• Back, M. D., Penke, L., Schmukle, S. C., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2011). Knowing your own mate value: Sex-specific personality effects on the accuracy of expected mate choices. Psychological Science, 22, 984-989.
• Penke, L. (2011, ed.). Special issue on personality and social relationships. European Journal of Personality, 87-172.
• Penke, L. (2010). Bridging the gap between modern evolutionary psychology and the study of individual differences. In D. M. Buss & P. H. Hawley (Eds.): The evolution of personality and individual differences (pp. 243-279). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Deary, I. J., Penke, L., & Johnson, W. (2010). The neuroscience of human intelligence differences. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 201-211.
• Penke, L., Muñoz Maniega, S., Houlihan, L. M., Murray, C., Gow, A. J., Clayden, J. D., Bastin, M. E., Wardlaw, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (2010). White matter integrity in the splenium of the corpus callosum is related to successful cognitive aging and partly mediates the protective effect of an ancestral polymorphism in ADRB2. Behavior Genetics, 40, 146-156.
• Penke, L., Muñoz Maniega, S., Murray, C., Gow, A. J., Valdés Hernández, M. C., Clayden, J. D., Starr, J. M., Wardlaw, J. M., Bastin, M. E., & Deary, I. J. (2010). A general factor of brain white matter integrity predicts information processing speed in healthy older people. Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 7569-7574.
• Penke, L., Bates, T. C., Gow, A. J., Pattie, A., Starr, J. M., Jones, B. C., Perrett, D. I., & Deary, I. J. (2009). Symmetric faces are a sign of successful cognitive aging. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 429-437.
• Place, S. S., Todd, P. M., Penke, L., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2009). The ability to judge the romantic interest of others. Psychological Science, 20, 22-26.
• Penke, L., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2008). Beyond global sociosexual orientations: A more differentiated look at sociosexuality and its effects on courtship and romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1113-1135.
• Penke, L., Denissen, J. J. A., & Miller, G. F. (2007). The evolutionary genetics of personality (target article). European Journal of Personality, 21, 549-587.
• Todd, P. M., Penke, L., Fasolo, B., & Lenton, A. P. (2007). Different cognitive processes underlie human mate choices and mate preferences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104, 15011-15016.