Faculty Profiles

I received a Bachelor's in Anthropology and one in Sociology at Texas State University (then Southwest Texas State) in 1989. My Ph.D. was awarded in 1999 in Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I studied vervet and patas monkey socioecology for two years in Kenya, as part of my dissertation research, focusing on the influence that food availability had on female primate competition and dominance. I held a Postdoctoral position at Miami University (of Ohio) from 1999-2000, where I focused on assessing the presence and distribution of chimpanzees in savanna habitats in Senegal.

Since 2001, I have been the Principal Investigator of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project in Senegal, where I have focused on the environmental pressures that influences ape behavior here and how such behavior differs from chimpanzees living in forested environments. I use these findings to try and inform our knowledge of early hominin behavioral ecology. I've studied primates in Kenya, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica and Peru, as well as Senegal. I regularly teach field courses in Primate Behavior and Ecology in Central America.