Data Collection

Dr. Jane Goodall DBE

Jane Goodall began her landmark study of chimpanzees in Tanzania in June 1960, under the mentorship of anthropologist and paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey. Her work at the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve would become the foundation of future primatological research and redefine the relationship between humans and animals.

In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which continues the Gombe research and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. The Institute also is widely recognized for establishing innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and the Roots & Shoots education program in more than 70 countries.

Dr. Goodall travels an average 300 days per year, speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees, other environmental crises, and her reasons for hope that humankind will solve the problems it has imposed on the earth. She continually urges her audiences to recognize their personal responsibility and ability to effect change through consumer action, lifestyle change and activism.

Dr. Goodall's scores of honors include the Medal of Tanzania, the National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal, Japan's prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 2003, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science, and the Gandhi/King Award for Nonviolence. In April 2002 Secretary-General Annan named Dr. Goodall a United Nations “Messenger of Peace.” In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II named Dr. Goodall a Dame of the British Empire, the equivalent of knighthood.

Her list of publications includes two overviews of her work at Gombe — In the Shadow of Man and Through a Window — as well as two autobiographies in letters, the spiritual autobiography Reason for Hope and many children's books. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior is the definitive scientific work on chimpanzees and is the culmination of Jane Goodall's scientific career. She has been the subject of numerous television documentaries and is featured in the large-screen format film, Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees (2002).

Francine "Penny" Patterson

President and Director of Research – The Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org

Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson received a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Stanford University and is the President and Director of Research at the Gorilla Foundation, a member of the Board of Consultants at the center for Cross Cultural Communication in Washington, D.C. and Editor-in-Chief of Gorilla, the journal of the Gorilla Foundation. For more than 30 years she has directed an interspecies communication project with Koko, a western lowland gorilla, and worked to promote public awareness of the plight of gorillas. The author of more than 40 publications including The Education of Koko with Eugene Linden, and the award-winning children’s books, Koko’s Kitten and Koko’s Story, Penny has earned numerous awards and honors, including National Geographic Society grants, a Kilby Award, and the Rolex Award for Enterprise.

In addition to Project Koko, Penny spearheaded the Gorilla Foundation’s Wildlife Protector’s Fund (WPF) in 1998, in response to the African bushmeat crisis. She is currently establishing the Maui Ape Preserve (MAP), the first tropical sanctuary for gorillas outside of Africa, and hi-tech visitor communication center, in order to save gorillas and other great apes from extinction. Both projects apply her 30 years of research experience to achieve "conservation through communication."

Dale Peterson

Author Dale Peterson teaches English at Tufts University and has written more than a dozen books including such topics as apes, Africa, and primate conservation. He co-authored with chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall VISIONS OF CALIBAN: ON CHIMPANZEES AND PEOPLE (Houghton Mifflin, 1993), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His current book, EATING APES has gained wide acclaim. He is currently at work on the first full biography of Dr. Goodall.

Lyn Miles

Dr. Miles is a primatologist with research interests in great ape language and cognition, evolution of human symbolic systems, orangutan behavior, and personhood of great apes and others. She is Director of Project Chantek, a study of the sign language ability, cognitive, and cultural development of an enculturated orangutan, Chantek. She is the author of over 100 scientific publications and papers and co-editor of The Mentality of Gorillas and Orangutans (Cambridge University Press), and Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals (SUNY Press). Her research is featured in documentary films on the Discovery Channel, A$E, PBS, Animal Planet, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, and London Sunday Times Magazine. She is Research Director and President of the Chantek Foundation, and President of Ape-Net, a consortium of foundations and celebrities founded by British musician Peter Gabriel to support enculturated apes and foster great ape communication and conservation. She teaches courses in primate behavior, ape language, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology, and has won a Student Government Association Outstanding Professor Award and a College of Arts and Sciences Research Prize. She also is a world percussionist with Earthshaking Samba in Atlanta, Georgia, and has her own band, Animal Nation, which features music co-composed and performed by Chantek.

Doug Broadfield

Doug Broadfield teaches Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University. He has written articles on the similarity of the great ape brain to the human brain, especially with regard to human language areas. He also studies the evolution of the human brain, and worked on the “Madeline” skull of Homo erectus that was found in a New York curio shop, which demonstrated the origin of the lateralization of language areas of the human brain. His current work is on the study of hominid fossil endocasts, sex differences in the brain, chimpanzee cognition, and captive habitats of lesser apes.

Mark Bodamer

Dr. Mark Bodamer (Pacific University) started his career learning from Washoe and the other chimpanzees at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. His research has explored the social and private use of ASL. Mark has also studied responses to different forms of enrichment; as well as the public's perception of chimpanzees. Most recently Mark has ventured to Chimfunshi in Zambia Africa with his students to facilitate the educational outreach program.

Doug Cress

Doug Cress is the secretariat of the Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance (PASA), the consortium of 19 chimpanzee, gorilla and primate sanctuaries across Africa, and a trustee of the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia, the world's largest primate sanctuary. He is also the executive director of the Great Ape Project (GAP), an international non-profit that fights to extend legal rights to great apes through its chapters in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, and co-author (with Sheila Siddle) of the book In My Family Tree: A Life With Chimpanzees.

Patti Ragan

Patti Ragan, founder and director of the Center for Great Apes, started her career as a teacher on the Miccosukee Indian Reservation located in the Florida Everglades. Later, while owning and operating a small business in Miami, Patti volunteered as a docent for many years at Miami Metrozoo and served as a member of the Board of Directors of the zoo for 6 years. In 1984 and 1985, she took a 4-month sabbatical from her company to volunteer in Indonesian Borneo at an orangutan rehabilitation center run by Dr. Biruté Galdikas. Due to this experience with orangutans in Borneo, Patti was asked by a tourist attraction in Miami to assist with the care of an ill infant orangutan in 1990. After learning that the orangutan was to be sold privately to a trainer for entertainment, she was motivated to find a more suitable home for this little ape. However, because the orangutan was a mixed race (Bornean/Sumatran sub-specific intergrade), accredited AZA zoos did not want him, and there were no U.S. sanctuaries at that time caring for orangutans. So, she set out to establish a long-term care program that would provide a permanent home for great apes who don’t have a future in an accredited zoo… specifically those coming from entertainment, roadside zoos, and private pet situations. Patti founded the Center for Great Apes in 1993 and continues to manage all aspects of the Center. The ill baby orangutan, who was the impetus for this effort, is now a very beautiful and healthy sub-adult male living at the sanctuary with 13 great ape residents.

Steve Ross

Steve Ross is the Chair of the Chimpanzee Species Survival Plan (SSP); a cooperative population management and conservation program for chimpanzees living in zoos accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). The Chimpanzee SSP works to advance the management and care of chimpanzees through their education, conservation and management programs. Steve is also the Behavioral Research Specialist at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois where his studies include a range of species including bears, big cats, and zoo visitors. He has published papers on the behavior of animals ranging from pigs to otters, but his primary interest is studying and ultimately improving the behavioral wellbeing of chimpanzees. Steve's recent work has focused on the design and realization of Lincoln Park Zoo's Regenstein Center for African Apes -- a state-of-the-art facility for gorillas and chimpanzees due to open July 2004.

Eric Matthews

Eric Matthews has served as an alternative high school teacher at Fir Ridge Campus for the David Douglas School District for the past ten years. He has taught a variety of subjects, including: English, Global Studies, Integrated Math, Biology, Anatomy, Physical Science and an applied, project based physical science class. He has many curriculum interests and has authored teacher handbooks on introductory microscopy, bridge construction and a high school activity book on primate anatomy and behavior. His research interests in primatology are in primate play behavior and personality. Eric is a ChimpanZoo Observer at the Oregon Zoo and serves on the ChimpanZoo Advisory Committee as Secondary Education Advisor.