Jane Goodall

Jane Morris Goodall was born on 3 April 1934 in London. From an early age she showed a strong interest in animal behaviour and the natural world. After completing her secondary education, she worked in London before travelling to Kenya in 1957 at the invitation of a school friend.

In Kenya, she met the paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who was seeking a researcher to undertake a long-term study of chimpanzees in their natural habitat. Despite lacking a university degree at the time, Goodall was selected for the project. In 1960 she began fieldwork at what is now Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, initially accompanied by her mother to satisfy colonial administrative requirements.

Over subsequent years, Goodall's patient approach to habituating the chimpanzees to human presence allowed her to observe behaviours that had not previously been documented in the scientific literature. She observed chimpanzees using and modifying plant stems as tools to extract termites from mounds, a finding that challenged the then-prevailing view that tool use was a uniquely human attribute. She also documented chimpanzee social structures, communication, and behaviours including hunting and, later, forms of inter-group conflict.

Goodall completed a doctorate at the University of Cambridge in 1965, one of very few people at the time to receive a doctorate without first holding a bachelor's degree. She continued her association with Gombe for decades and founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support research and conservation efforts.

From the 1980s onwards, she became increasingly involved in public advocacy for wildlife conservation, environmental education, and related issues, traveling extensively and founding the Roots and Shoots youth programme in 1991. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004. Jane Goodall died on 1 October 2025, at the age of 91.