Chimpanzee Behavior and Conservation

Anne Pusey is Professor Emerita of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University. She holds a BA from Oxford University and a PhD from Stanford University. Throughout her career, she has dedicated much of her research to studying the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, Tanzania, and spent 11 years researching the lions of the Serengeti. Her journey began in 1970 as a research assistant for Jane Goodall, followed by five years at Gombe collecting data for her dissertation on adolescent chimpanzee behavior. Pusey spent 26 years as a Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota, where she founded the Jane Goodall Institute’s Center for Primate Studies. This center archived and digitized data from the long-running Gombe chimpanzee study. After joining Duke in 2010, she established the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center, continuing this important work. Pusey has mentored numerous graduate students focused on Gombe chimpanzees and remains an active visitor to the research site. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and has authored over 150 publications on various aspects of chimpanzee behavior and biology.

Emily Boehm is a researcher at the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center and a Faculty Development Consultant at the University of North Carolina. She earned a PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology from Duke University in 2016 and a BA in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 2009. After completing her PhD, Dr. Boehm served as an instructor in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke before transitioning to her current role at UNC. She is dedicated to enhancing teaching practices and learning outcomes in STEM fields, with a focus on making STEM classrooms more inclusive. Her primatological research interests center on female reproductive strategies and life history in the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, Tanzania.

Kara Walker is a researcher at the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University, where she investigates chimpanzee social behavior. She holds a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Anthropology from Duke University and a BS in Animal Behavior from Bucknell University. Her research focuses on female strategies across the lifespan in chimpanzees, with particular attention to sociality, reproduction, and life history, and has been published in top scientific journals. In 2016, she joined the faculty of North Carolina State University (NCSU) as a lecturer in physical anthropology, where she teaches undergraduate courses. Dr. Walker has demonstrated her commitment to undergraduate teaching and mentoring, receiving the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring at Duke University.