Jane Goodall: Pioneering Chimpanzee Researcher and Conservationist Dies

Dame Jane Goodall was an English primatologist and anthropologist, famous for her decades of research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania. Born on April 3, 1934, in London, she traveled to Gombe Stream in 1960 without a university degree and later earned a PhD from Cambridge.

Her discoveries showed that chimpanzees make and use tools, form lasting social bonds and wage organized conflicts, challenging the idea that humans were uniquely different. She gave the animals names rather than numbers, which went against scientific convention. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 and the Roots & Shoots youth program in 1991.

Goodall was a UN Messenger of Peace and received the Kyoto Prize (1990), the Templeton Prize (2021) and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2025). She was made a Dame in 2004. She had one son, Hugo, with her first husband, Hugo van Lawick. She spent most of her later years traveling and speaking. She died of cardiac arrest on October 1, 2025, at age 91, in California during a U.S. speaking tour.

Achievements: Gombe chimpanzee research (from 1960), founded the Jane Goodall Institute (1977), Roots & Shoots (1991), Templeton Prize (2021), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2025).

Birth: April 3, 1934 - London, England.

Profession: Primatologist, anthropologist and conservationist.

Interesting Facts: Her childhood stuffed toy chimpanzee, Jubilee, is credited with inspiring her love of animals. She said dogs were her favorite animal.