Youngstown State University

Skeggs Lecture Series

Presenting

Dr. Jane Goodall

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tickets are FREE and available April 12-14 between 8am and 8pm (or until they run out) at the Information and PC Lab in Kilcawley Center, YSU Campus.  YOU MUST HAVE A TICKET TO ENTER THIS EVENT.

                                                   For more information, please call 330-941-3497.

Jane Goodall was born in London, England in 1934. As a child she was given a lifelike chimpanzee toy named Jubilee by her father. Goodall was not very interested in animals until her father brought her the stuffed animal. Today, the toy still sits on her dresser in London. After the divorce of her parents when Goodall was 12 years old, she moved with her mother to Bournemouth, England.

Goodall's interest in animals prompted notable anthropologist Louis Leakey to hire her as his assistant and secretary. He invited her to accompany him and his wife, Mary Leakey, to dig at Olduvai Gorge in eastern Africa. He asked Goodall to study the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park (then known as 'Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve'). She arrived at Gombe accompanied by her mother in July 1960. Leakey arranged for her to return to the United Kingdom where she earned a doctorate in ethology from Darwin College, the University of Cambridge in 1964. Along with Dian Fossey, famous for living with gorillas, and Biruté Galdikas, who advanced studies in orangutans, Goodall was one of three women dubbed "Leakey's Angels".

Goodall is best known for her study of chimpanzee social and family life. She began studying the Kasakela chimpanzee community in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania in 1960. In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which supports the Gombe research, and she is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. With nineteen offices around the world, the JGI is widely recognized for innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa and a global youth program, Roots & Shoots, which currently has over 8,000 groups in over 100 countries. Today, Goodall devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy on behalf of chimpanzees and the environment, traveling nearly 300 days a year. Goodall is also a board member for the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary outside of Africa, Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Goodall was instrumental in the study of social learning, primate cognition, thinking and culture in wild chimpanzees, their differentiation from the bonobo, and the inclusion of both chimpanzee species, and the gorilla, as Hominids.

One of Goodall's major break-throughs in the field of primatology was the discovery of tool-making among chimpanzees during her study. Though many animals had been clearly observed using 'tools', previously, only humans were thought to make tools, and tool-making was considered the defining difference between humans and other animals. This discovery convinced several scientists to reconsider their definition of being human.