In today’s installment of the podcast, I’m really excited to share a fascinating conversation I had with Dr. Tecumseh Fitch about the evolution of cognition and communication.Tecumseh Fitch is Professor of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna where he co-founded the Department of Cognitive Biology and plays a leading role in the radically interdisciplinary Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, where they gather biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists, and mix them...
For this episode, I sat down in the studio with evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Laura Buck in the Research Centre for Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology of Liverpool John Moores University.Dr. Susumu Tomiya of CICASP also joined the conversation.After waxing on the plausibility that some ancient hominins in cold climates might have hibernated - spoiler alert! Not very - Laura describes the evolutionary and developmental processes that lead to adaptations and behavioral responses to t...
In today’s lecture, Dr. Paula Pebsworth joined us from her home in Texas to give a lecture titled “You never know where life will take you: an interdisciplinary and unconventional path”. This lecture was extra special for me, because Paula and I were grad students together at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute over a decade ago, both under the supervision of Mike Huffman. I’ve missed my friend over the intervening years, along with her family - who also play a feature role in her t...
In today’s origin story, Dr. Colin Chapman joined us over Zoom from his home on Vancouver Island to talk about, quote, “A Few Fun Things I have Learned Studying Primates". Colin Chapman has a whole bunch of titles that are worth a quick once over: he is a Killam Research Fellow, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a fellow at Humboldt Foundation, a Wilson Fellow, holds an Office of an Academician, Northwest University, Xi’an, China and is a Conservation Fellow with the Wildlife Cons...
In this episode of The PrimateCast origins, we’re sharing a lecture from primatologist and cognitive ethologist, Patricia Izar from the University of São Paulo. Pat is one of the eminent Latin American primatologists, and along with her close friends and colleagues Drs. Dorothy Fragaszy and Elisabetta Visalberghi - see episode #68 for more on this from Elisabetta Visalberghi - she’s been studying the incredible tool use behavior of robust capuchins for the past few decades.Capuchins are one o...
In this episode, comparative cognitive scientist Dr. Reggie Gazes and my office neighbor Dr. Ikuma Adachi.Reggie is an associate professor of psychology and animal behavior at Bucknell University in Lewisburg Pennsylvania. She and Ikuma overlapped as trainees in the lab of Dr. Robert Hampton at the now-named Emory National Primate Research Center.Listen to Rob in episode 20 of the podcast on mental time travel and metacognition. In the interview here, we find out how her experiences in Rob’s ...
In this episode of The PrimateCast origins, we’re sharing a lecture given by wildlife biologist and conservationist Dr. Ian Redmond, OBE.Ian is renowned for his work with gorillas and elephants in Africa. Through research, filming, ecotourism, and conservation science and activism, he’s spent over 40 years cultivating the wisdom and the network needed to inspire and incite real change. In this lecture, Ian weaves an engaging tale around his experiences. His wonderful storytelling might m...
In this episode, conservationist, author and founder of The Orangutan Project, Leif Cocks. Leif is a tireless conservationist who seems to be involved in innumerable conservation projects throughout Southeast Asia, but most notably The Orangutan Project, which he founded in 1998.We talk about Leif’s path to conservation, which began early on with an interest in animals and nature and was formalized through his experiences in higher education and work in husbandry and small population bio...
This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: ...
This episode features a conversation with Devan Schowe, Campaigns Associate with animal advocacy and wildlife nonprofit, Born Free USA. Born Free USA, and its parent Born Free, are charitable organizations advocating for animal welfare and compassionate conservation, with the ultimate goal of ending human exploitation of animals for any reason. In the interview, Devan outlines the history of the organization - it has a very Hollywood origin story! - and all of the twists and turns that brough...
This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: ...
This episode features a conversation with Dr. Tesla Monson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University. Tesla was in Japan visiting our own Dr. Susumu Tomiya to start some work with our collection of primate bones, so I asked Susumu to join us in the studio as well. Tesla runs the Primate Evolution Lab at Western Washington University, and has conducted some fascinating research into how we can use bones and fossils and especially teeth to understan...
“You should always collaborate with your friends!” - Sarah BrosnanIn this episode I am really excited to be able to bring to you an interview with Dr. Sarah Brosnan, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Philosophy and Neuroscience in the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. Dr. Ikuma Adachi, from Kyoto University's Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior, also joined us for the interview.Sarah Brosnan is probably best known for her work on inequity avers...
This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: ...
This episode is all about where, how and why primates got their names! No, we won't be talking about popular primates like Kanzi the bonobo or Pan-kun (if you're in Japan), but rather the terms we use for the common and scientific names of primates across their taxonomy.Dr. Elaine Guevara is a Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and in 2021, she coauthored a study published in the International Journal of Primatology called “...
This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: ...
This episode features paleoanthropologist and science educator Dr. Briana Pobiner.Briana works in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She is also Associate Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University. Briana’s anthropological research focuses on understanding the human diet, and changes therein over the past few million years. Her work on science education and communication focuses on promoting und...
This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast:...
This episode features distinguished primatologist Dr. Charles Snowdon, or Chuck Snowdon, as he’s maybe better known by. Chuck is Hilldale Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and he’s widely known for his work on primate social development, communication and cognition. He ran the Snowdon Primate Center in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where so much was learned about the small Neotropical primates known as marmosets a...
This episode presents an interview with Dr. Pamela Asquith, and anthropologist and meta-primatologist who has studied how primatology was done historically in Japan, and tackled the challenge of language, metaphor and anthropomorphism in science.In March 2022, she delivered an excellent talk for CICASP in our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives in the Field. You can find a link to that event here, or go straight to the CICASP YouTube Channel and fin...