Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos. Primatologists study both living and extinct primates in their natural habitats and in laboratories by conducting field studies and experiments in order to understand aspects of their evolution and behavior.
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network.
The Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, also known as the Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute, was a research institute of the Max Planck Society, located in Göttingen, Germany. On January 1, 2022, the institute merged with the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen to form the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences.
The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History performs basic research into archaeological science. The institute is one of 80+ research institutes of the Max Planck Society and is located in Jena, Germany.
The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology is a scientific research institute founded in 1999 in Halle, Germany. It is one of the institutes of the Max Planck Society.
The Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biology of Ageing, founded in 2008, is one of over 80 independent, non-profit-making institutes set up under the umbrella of the Max Planck Society. The overall research aim is to obtain fundamental insights into the aging process and thus to pave the way towards healthier aging in humans. An international research team drawn from almost 30 nations is working to uncover underlying molecular, physiological and evolutionary mechanisms.
Jean-Jacques Hublin is a French paleoanthropologist. He is a professor at the Max Planck Society, Leiden University and the University of Leipzig and the founder and director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He is best known for his work on the Pleistocene hominins, and on the Neandertals and early Homo sapiens, in particular.
Josep Call is a Spanish comparative psychologist specializing in primate cognition.
Mark Stoneking is a geneticist currently working as the Group Leader of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, of Max Planck Gesellschaft at Leipzig, and Honorary Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. He works in the field of human evolution, especially the genetic evolution, origin and dispersal of modern humans. He, along with his doctoral advisor Allan Wilson and a fellow researcher Rebecca L. Cann, contributed to the Out of Africa Theory in 1987 by introducing the concept of Mitochondrial Eve, a hypothetical common mother of all living humans based on mitochondrial DNA.
Nina G. Jablonski is an American anthropologist and palaeobiologist, known for her research into the evolution of skin color in humans. She is engaged in public education about human evolution, human diversity, and racism. In 2021, she was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and in 2009, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. She is an Evan Pugh University Professor at The Pennsylvania State University, and the author of the books Skin: A Natural History, Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color, and the co-author of Skin We Are In.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to evolution:
Christopher Boehm (1931–2021) was an American cultural anthropologist with a subspecialty in primatology, who researched conflict resolution, altruism, the evolution of morality, and feuding and warfare. He was also the Director of the Jane Goodall Research Center at University of Southern California, a multi-media interactive database focusing on the social and moral behavior of world hunter gatherers. Boehm died on November 23, 2021 at the age of 90.
Janet Kelso is a South African computational biologist and Group leader of the Minerva Research Group for Bioinformatics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She is best known for her work comparing DNA from previous humans with those of the present.
Christina Warinner is an American anthropologist best known for her research on the evolution of ancient microbiomes. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University and the Sally Starling Seaver Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute. Warinner is also a Research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.
Richard McElreath is an American professor of anthropology and a director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He's an author of the Statistical Rethinking applied Bayesian statistics textbook, among the first to largely rely on the Stan statistical environment, and the accompanying rethinking R language package.
Tanya M. Smith is a human evolutionary biologist, and Professor at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University.
B. Holly Smith is an American biological anthropologist. She is currently a research professor in the Center for Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at The George Washington University. She is also a visiting research professor at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. The majority of her work is concentrated in evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology, life history, and dental anthropology.
Joan B. Silk is an American primatologist, Regents Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) at Arizona State University. Her research interests include evolutionary anthropology, animal behavior, and primatology. Together with her anthropologist husband, Robert T. Boyd, she wrote the textbook How Humans Evolved.
Tatjana Piotrowski is a German molecular geneticist who researches zebrafish as models of vertebrate development. She has worked at Stowers Institute for Medical Research since 2011 and is editor of the Annual Review of Genetics.
The Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (MPI-BI) is a non-university research institution of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG). The institute is dedicated to basic research on topics in behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience. Research at the international institute focuses on how animal organisms acquire, store, apply and pass on knowledge about their environment in order to find ever-new solutions to problems and adapt to a constantly changing environment. Model organisms include Drosophila, zebrafish, mice and various bird species.
