We are delighted that our PI, Prof Jacob Dunn, features in the Primate Society of Great Britain’s new Primatology Profiles series.
Each month, the series interviews someone working in primatology about their work and background, showing that there is no single route into the field. Jake was interviewed by Stuart Thompson, who leads the project.
In the interview, Jake talks about what unites the PEER Group: an interest in sound. That means asking how and why primates make sounds and what this tells us about the evolution of vocal communication, including speech. It also means using passive acoustic monitoring to detect animals and studying how anthropogenic noise affects animals, both in the wild and in captivity. He also explains why his heart is with howler monkeys. He has worked with a critically endangered howler species in Mexico for about twenty-one years, and with around fifteen species varying in socioecology and vocal anatomy, howlers are “a natural experiment” for questions about the evolution of communication.
Jake is also candid that his career path was far from linear, from working at Twycross Zoo as a teenager to failing his first year of zoology at Edinburgh. His advice to students thinking about primatology? Build hard skills, especially quantitative skills and programming, and follow your passion. As he puts it, it is “a really great job, and it’s fascinating, and a real privilege”.
Huge thanks to Stuart and the PSGB. You can read the full interview here.
