Jane Goodall died Oct. 1 at the age of 91, leaving behind a legacy of trailblazing scientific and educational work—a career that began when she lived alongside wild chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s, closely observing their social behavior and family lives. Over the following decades, she would play an integral role in raising public consciousness of the importance not just of humans’ closest animal relatives, but of animal behavior more generally and of the importance of conservation.
Goodall was scheduled to bring her speaking tour to the George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium Oct. 7. But her connections to GW ran deeper than a single visit.
For Associate Professor of Anthropology Carson Murray, Goodall was a mentor, an inspiration and a friend. A primate behavioral ecologist, Murray worked with Goodall and continues to conduct field research at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, where Goodall began her pioneering study of wild chimpanzees in 1960.
Murray is a lead investigator with the Gombe Stream Research Consortium, which manages the long-term behavioral chimpanzee study in collaboration with the Jane Goodall Institute. At GW, she helps maintain a mother-infant dataset that focuses on chimpanzee families and builds on 65 years of behavioral research begun by Goodall. “I guess you could say I’m her academic granddaughter,” Murray said.
One of the long-term databases is housed at GW, where it is plays an invaluable role in student anthropology research, Murray noted.
“GW has a special place…as relates to Jane and the things that she was interested in,” she said. “We want to make sure her legacy is maintained and continues and thrives.” With over 5 generations of chimpanzees now captured in the long-term data, researchers are still making new and surprising discoveries about chimpanzee behavior.
Murray first met Goodall in the late ’90s as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania. Inspired by Goodall’s seminal book “In the Shadow of Man”—“I read it several times,” she laughed—Murray traveled to Gombe to see Goodall’s work with chimpanzee families firsthand. Murray has worked there, sometimes alongside Goodall, for 25 years.
She called Goodall “a keen observer of all primate behavior, including humans” and emphasized her important role in shaping primatology research and conserving generations of primates. “She paved the way for groundbreaking discoveries,” she said. “It was amazing to be with her and see how she viewed the natural world.”
Indeed, Murray recalled Goodall’s generosity with her time and wisdom—whether while walking with her along the shores of Lake Tanganyika or sharing stories at her dinner table after a day in the field.
“She made you feel that you could do anything—that you should do these things,” she said. “Her true legacy is hope and inspiration.”
Goodall also left an impression on James Hahn, a professor of computer science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Institute for Innovation in Health Computing who runs GW’s Motion Capture and Analysis Laboratory (MOCA). (Hahn also holds a professorship in pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences.) In 2019, the two collaborated to create “Virtual Jane,” a compendium of what Hahn calls “4D (3D plus time) data” of Goodall—terabytes of time-varying 3D shape data, texture maps, movement and speech, envisioned at the time as a basis for a digital avatar that could expand Goodall’s educational reach. The Jane Goodall Institute currently holds all the Virtual Jane data.
“The best way for me to describe her would be a gentle soul with an intense dedication,” Hahn said. “Her soft-spoken demeanor belied her passion for our environment and the primates who occupy it. She did not have to be forceful or loud to grab your attention.”
Jane Goodall participated in a body scan and reviewed data collected by James Hahn and the MOCA team during the "Virtual Jane" project in 2019. (William Atkins/GW Today)
“Virtual Jane” was a powerful test case for MOCA’s optical scanning technology, Hahn said, opening doors to some of the lab’s ongoing cutting-edge research—including National Institutes of Health-funded work on how optical body-surface scanning and analysis might be used to assess obesity, age-related muscle loss and fatty accumulation in the liver.
“Dr. Goodall’s engagement with MOCA inspired us to use the optical scan technology on a variety of health-related applications and directly led to a number of new research projects,” he said.
Goodall’s willingness to see and create connections across many scientific worlds confirmed Hahn’s own view of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, he said.
“I admired her lifelong dedication to her research and her passion for education,” Hahn said. “She was also open to multi-disciplinary collaborations, seeing the world as an interconnected ecosystem and not as a series of siloed scientific disciplines.”
