Jane Goodall was a young secretarial school graduate when Louis Leakey sent her to Tanganyika in 1960 to study chimpanzees. She later received a PhD from Cambridge University, and has become one of the world's most honoured scientists and writers.

Born on April 3, 1934, Goodall was raised in a close knit family and was greatly influenced by her Mother Vanne and her Grandmother Danny. She had a sister Judy who was four years younger than herself. They share the same birth day!

Goodall's father was Mortimer Goodall and was in the military stationed in the jungles of Singapore. He gave Jane a gift when she was about one year old that she still treasures today. It is a toy chimpanzee named Jubilee after a chimp that was famous at the London Zoo at that time.

Her parents divorced when she was a child and she and her Mother continued living with grandmother in the little seaside town of Bournemouth, England.

Goodall was especially fond of climbing trees and sitting up there to read books. These traits would later be useful in helping her enjoy the solitude that would be a major part of her life's work.

At age nineteen, she moved to London to be a secretary because her mother suggested that secretarial skills were needed anywhere in the world, and this would enable her to travel. After working awhile there, she returned to Bournemouth to work as a waitress while saving money for her first trip. By age 23, she had saved enough to go by ship to visit a girl friend who had moved to Kenya.

She saw Louis Leaky, and was hired to be his secretary at the Kenya National Museum. She was asked to accompany Leaky and his wife Mary on one of their numerous treks to the Serengeti plains in Tanganyika.

They did monotonous, tedious work digging for ancient fossils. After observing how serious and methodical she was, Leaky selected her to do a study of chimps and he obtained the necessary funding for the project.

In 1960, it was not considered proper for her to go without a chaperone into the wilds. Her mother, to whom she was very close, went with her to Tanganyika where they stayed for four months in a tent made of poles and a roof of straw.

Good all recalls not having any fear. She attributes this in part to Leaky. He told her that if she were calm and meant no harm to the animals, they would sense that and not harm her. She climbed up a mountain to its peak, looked down and saw two beautiful valleys and a lake. She sat there day and after day waiting for chimps to see her and gradually become used to her presence among them.

The first chimp that came close to her was a male with white hair on his face. She named him David Greybeard. She would later watch as he fashioned tools such as using blade of grass to pick up termites to eat - much as humans would use a spoon. He would also use leaves to get rainwater.

She patiently waited and watched them; and they watched her in return. She noticed that they used nonverbal behaviors to show their emotions, i.e. patting each other on the back, holding hands - and even holding grudges if they were offended.

There were difficulties to overcome; but Goodall was committed to her work. She obtained a PhD in ethnology from Cambridge in 1965 at Leaky's urging, and would later teach at Stanford University.

On March 28, 1964 she married a photographer for the National Geographic, Hugo van.Lawick and, in 1967; they had one son named Hugo Eric Louis but, always called 'Grub.' Grub spent his early childhood in the Serengeti.

To spend more time with Grab, she stopped following the chimps and had students assigned to that work. She supervised the research. Much of her style of parenting came from observing the affectionate and tolerant style of mothering used naturally by the chimps.

After a few years, she and Lawick divorced.

She became internationally prominent in 1965 when National Geographic did a television documentary about her research.

In 1975, she married Derek Bryceson, the director of National Parks in Tanzania at the time. He was the only White elected to Parliament in Black Africa. In 1979, he died of cancer - a serious emotional and spiritual crisis for Goodall.

They spent their last months together in England. After his death she returned to Africa a bitter, angry, sad woman. There she eventually found peace and noticed how accepting the chimpanzees were of life and natural events. She found emotional healing by being in the middle of nature.

Goodall notes that there are similarities, but also differences, between human beings and chimps. Humans have a complex language that can be used to teach the young about the past; and that the past is something that humans need to learn from. Humans have a higher intellect than chimps and can ask what is life's purpose.

Chimps can be aggressive and territorial. Chimps attack each other but, Goodall feels that for humans to wage wars is worse than the wars among chimps. This she bases on the fact that humans have a brain than can ask higher levels of questions. Chimps are only directed by their instinct. They can be taught sign language, but do not understand past or future meanings. Humans evolved physically from an ape-man and culturally continued to evolve.

Her early work and documentation led other researchers to confirm that chimps have rank, and that the higher one's ranking, the better the food is for that animal. This, in turn, causes better survival rates for high ranking animal's offspring.

Her interest gradually shifted from making observations of chimps in the jungle to using that knowledge to help the world. She established Wildlife Awareness Week around the world to boost local economies and aid conservation by providing jobs. She formed a group called Roots and Shoots to teach children around the world to respect all living things.

She lectures constantly about conservation. She is a staunch supporter of animal rights, and wants better treatment of animals in laboratories - and eventually hopes that other methods of research can be utilized. She is a vegetarian, and encourages others to follow that path.

More Information at: http://www.janegoodall.org/