Jane Goodall
Africa

Goodall had always been drawn to animals and Africa, which brought her to the farm of a friend in the Kenya highlands in 1957. From there, she obtained work as a secretary, and acting on her friend's advice, she telephoned Louis Leakey, the Kenyan archaeologist and palaeontologist, with no other thought than to make an appointment to discuss animals. Leakey, believing that the study of existing great apes could provide indications of the behaviour of early hominids, was looking for a chimpanzee researcher, though he kept the idea to himself. Instead, he proposed that Goodall work for him as a secretary. After obtaining approval from his co-researcher and wife, British paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, Louis sent Goodall to Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika (modern Tanzania), where he laid out his plans.

In 1958, Leakey sent Goodall to London to study primate behaviour with Osman Hill and primate anatomy with John Napier. Leakey raised funds, and on 14 July 1960, Goodall went to Gombe Stream National Park, becoming the first of what would come to be called The Trimates. She was accompanied by her mother, whose presence was necessary to satisfy the requirements of David Anstey, chief warden, who was concerned for their safety. Goodall credits her mother with encouraging her to pursue a career in primatology, a male-dominated field at the time. Goodall has stated that women were not accepted in the field when she started her research in the late 1950s. As of 2019, the field of primatology is made up almost evenly of men and women, in part thanks to the trailblazing of Goodall and her encouragement of young women to join the field.

Leakey arranged funding, and in 1962 he sent Goodall, who had no degree, to the University of Cambridge. She was the eighth person to be allowed to study for a PhD at Cambridge without first having obtained a bachelor's degree. She went to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in natural sciences by 1964, which is when she went up to the new Darwin College, Cambridge, for a Doctor of Philosophy in ethology. Her thesis was completed in 1966 under the supervision of Robert Hinde on the Behaviour of free-living chimpanzees, detailing her first five years of study at the Gombe Reserve.

On 19 June 2006, the Open University of Tanzania awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
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