Ever wonder what it's like to live with chimpanzees in the wild? What do chimps do in their daily lives, and how do scientists learn more about them, and our own origins? Come chat with Abby McClain and Sims Patton, PhD candidates from The George Washington University, to learn about their research and what it's like to be a real-life Jane Goodall! Ask them about their field experiences, see the equipment they use, and practice your own observation skills along the way!
 

Sims is interested in different forms of early life adversity and their outcomes in non-human primates. Following completion of her MS focused on ecological adversity, her dissertation work focuses on early exposure to violence in the Gombe population of chimpanzees in Tanzania. 

Abby studies how death and loss in social groups can inform what we know about social bonds in nonhuman species. Her work explores the influence of friendships on space use in wild primates using geospatial and behavioral data from the world's longest running great ape dataset.