Meet The Team

I graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a BA in Biological Anthropology and a BS in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. I have been a part of the Chimpanzee Video Coding Team in the PEMA Lab at UCSC for the last three years where our goal is to "code" the camera trap footage captured in the Issa Valley. This entails recording the species, quantity and behaviour of the animals present in the videos and identifying the chimpanzees by name and age/sex whenever possible. Through this work I have become very familiar with the species and individual chimpanzees living there and am thrilled at the opportunity to put this knowledge to use in the field. During my time here, I will be assisting Seth Phillips with his graduate research concerning termite behaviour and availability as well as collecting preliminary video footage of the chimpanzees termite fishing for a future masters or graduate thesis.

Former music teacher. PhD student in Soundscape Ecology at Purdue University since 2020. My work includes bird and insect (Orthoptera) bioacoustics, soundscape phenology, remote sensing, and human perception of soundscapes, in particular, the role of specific wildlife sounds on the sense of topophilia, or attachment to the homeland.

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Paleoecology Lab in Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins. Prior to this, I obtained my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. I am currently beginning a project collecting detailed ecological data (climate, rainfall, soil and vegetation composition, as well as faunal distribution and abundance data) from the mosaic of habitats and vegetation types at Issa in order to build refined models for reconstructing the paleoenvironments of fossil hominin sites. I am using a combination of survey methods and camera trap footage to access these data. My previous/ongoing work uses hard tissue chemical and structural evidence to investigate dietary, biorhythmic, health, and life history variability in numerous primates, including humans.

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A Master’s dissertation on the chimpanzee social custom, Grooming Hand Clasp (GHC) has given me the opportunity to visit this remarkable location in Western Tanzania. Follow days consist of cool morning, and hot afternoon expeditions into the Issa Valley to observe this unique behaviour. The GHC is a culturally transmitted custom whereby two individuals engage in a grooming bout with one arm raised and linked, whilst the other is used to groom. It has been observed in communities of common eastern and western chimpanzees, as well as bonobos of the DRC. A community-wide proliferation inevitably produces clasp variation, variants that occur not just between closely located communities, but also within. Clasps are broadly categorised into palm-to-palm and non-palm-to-palm styles, with further variations subsetting into specific wrist and elbow variations. The main goal of my research is to categorise the distinct styles and variations of the Issa group, whilst identifying any associations between social variables (sex and rank). The GHC is said to be a signal of who-is-who, and my investigation will, with any luck, contribute to this hypothesis. Research aside, to experience days amongst wild chimpanzees is one of the most extraordinary experiences. Combined with an almost therapeutic atmosphere at camp, my time so far, although short, is one of unending amazement. 

Since December 2020 I am the camp manager of the research station in Issa Valley, Tanzania, with a focus on the field management and the support of ongoing and new research projects. 

In 2016 I obtained my Master’s degree in biochemistry at the University of Leipzig and continued my work as a research assistant for the biobanking of the long-term database of the Taï Chimpanzee Project at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. The opportunities lying in the combination of field work, good data management and new technologies, intrigued me. In 2019/2020 I took up the opportunity to become a field research assistant for the Taï Chimpanzee Project in Ivory Coast focusing on behavioural data collection and data editing.

I am interested in the behavioural ecology of chimpanzees and how they respond to challenging habitats. Understanding behavioural adaptions of wildlife will play a key role in future conservation work. My goal is to continue this path in applied conservation and field management while supporting international research. 

I’m a PhD researcher from the University of St Andrews. My main interest is in the ways animal sociality shapes behaviour. Currently, my research focuses on the use of gestural communication of East African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii). I am particularly interested in how individual differences in socio-ecology influence the use of gestures within and across different chimpanzee communities in Tanzania and Uganda.

My background is in Conservation Biology and Ecology. My research interests are wide and varied, however I have a particular interest in African forest systems and primate-plant interactions. My PhD focussed on seed dispersal services of samango monkeys (Cercopithecus
albogularis schwarzi) in South Africa. My research at GMERC aims to expand on my PhD and I hope to delve into fire ecology of Miombo woodlands and how the fires affect animal behaviour.

I am a conservationist “in the making”, with a specific interest for the behaviour and ecology of large African mammals. I started my field work in 2013 as an undergraduate at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, investigating the foraging behaviour of eland antelopes in the Magaliesberg mountains of South Africa. I then moved to the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), where I completed my Masters in Animal Ecology on ungulate seasonal movements and landscape-scale resource selection. I have recently completed my PhD project at the University of Liverpool (UK), which focused on the vocalizations of impala, topi, and other antelopes. Over the course of my doctoral studies, I have led the field component of the Maasai Mara Herbivore Project (Kenya), and taken part in other projects across East and southern Africa, targeting large carnivore conservation, human-wildlife conflicts, and community outreach. 

At Issa, I coordinate the on-going behavioural research on chimpanzees, yellow baboons, and red-tailed monkeys, and take care of the overall ecological monitoring of the study area. In particular, I am developing a large-scale camera trap project aimed at estimating the abundance and distribution of large mammals (lion, leopard, hyena, buffalo, roan antelope, etc.), in order to inform suitable conservation and management strategies for these species in the Greater Mahale Ecosystem. 

Rhianna’s fascination with apes started whilst studying for a masters in Palaeobiology at UCL, where she studied ape dental morphology as a means to place fossil apes into ape taxonomy. After graduating in 2013, she wanted to explore the relationship between form and function further, leading her to seek work opportunities with living apes. She has since worked in chimpanzee conservation and research in Guinea and The Ivory Coast, and is now undertaking her own project at Issa, studying our chimpanzee’s positional behaviour and habitat use. She is also investigating how/if their habitat use and behaviour changes in response to seasonal fires

Christian has an MSc in Primate Conservation from Oxford Brookes University. Carrying out his thesis research in Uganda's Budongo Forest Reserve, he focused on chimpanzee stress hormone responses to fragmented, anthropogenic landscapes. Before completing his MSc, Christian worked with the Borneo Nature Foundation contributing to biodiversity surveys and long-term orangutan, gibbon and red-langur behaviour projects. From 2016 onward Christian has worked as the Research Officer for a zoological park and as a Lecturer in Higher education, specialising in wildlife conservation. His particular interests revolve around the anthropogenic impacts humans can present to wild primates and how humans may alter zoo-housed primate behaviour, both impacting species conservation status and welfare. Christian currently oversees the research at GMERC. 

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I conducted research for my undergraduate honors thesis at Issa Valley. My thesis examined the 'landscape of fear' of red-tailed monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius), which models the spatial distribution of safe and risky regions from predation in a prey's home range. Working with the GMERC team, I was able to collect data on multiple antipredator behaviors to create distinct LOF models for each behavior, a feat not yet done in LOF research. Antipredator behaviors not only created spatially unique LOFs, but were also predicted differently by other environmental and demographic data. These findings challenge whether only one of multiple antipredator behaviors can accurately portray a landscape of the predation risk prey face.

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