Dr. Salmon received her BSc in Biology and her PhD in Evolutionary Psychology from McMaster University. After a number of blissful years as a post-doctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, she fled the frozen north to join the faculty at the University of Redlands in southern California where she is currently a professor in the Psychology department and the chair of the Human Animal Studies Program. She is the co-author (with Donald Symons) of Warrior Lovers: Erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality and The Secret Power of Middle Children (co-authored with Katrin Schumann).

Her primary research interests include birth order/parental investment/sibling conflict, reproductive suppression and dieting behaviour, and male and female sexuality, particularly as expressed in pornography and other erotic genres.  Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.