Sara Shettleworth is an American born, Canadian experimental psychologist and zoologist. Her research focusses on animal cognition. She is a professor of psychology and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto.
Shettleworth's research focuses on adaptive specializations of learning and the evolution of cognition. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford University, and an American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientist Lecturer. Her research has been supported continuously since 1974 by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Shettleworth was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society at their 2008 annual meeting for her contributions to the study of animal cognition. In 2012 the Canadian Society For Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science honoured her with the Donald Hebb award for her distinguished contributions to psychological science.