Jane Goodall

1934 – 2025

Dame Jane Morris Goodall was an English primatologist and anthropologist whose six decades of field research on the wild chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania transformed scientific understanding of primate behavior and human evolution. Beginning in 1960 under the mentorship of paleontologist Louis Leakey, she documented chimpanzees making and using tools, hunting cooperatively, and waging coalitionary violence—observations that overturned long-standing assumptions about what separated humans from other great apes. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 and remained an active conservation and animal-welfare advocate until her death in October 2025.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM