Grants | The Leakey Foundation
We are thrilled to announce the spring 2025 Leakey Foundation Research Grant recipients. This cycle, we awarded 26 grants to researchers working in 18 different countries. Of these grant recipients, 12 are PhD candidates and 14 are postdoctoral researchers or senior scientists. Their innovative work explores fascinating topics such as what happened to the Shanidar Cave Neanderthals, how early humans navigated tidal landscapes, and how exposure to violence impacts health and behavior.
We look forward to sharing more about our grantees and their work as their projects progress.
Spring 2025 Research Grant Recipients
Graeme Barker, University of Cambridge: What happened to the Shanidar Cave Neanderthals?
Emma Betz, University of British Columbia-Okanagan: New geochemical approaches for investigating Paranthropus and other hominins’ diet
Giuseppe Briatico, Hebrew University: How seasonal climate changes influenced mammal adaptations
Colin Chapman, Vancouver Island University: 35 years of forest and primate community change
Alex Chege, Stony Brook University: How early humans navigated tidal landscapes: Insights from nonhuman primates
Evan Cunningham, Emory University: Imitation in Cebus imitator: how do capuchins solve experimental problems?
Alyssa Enny, Yale University: The importance of aquatic animals in early hominin diets
Tyler Faith, University of Utah: Exploration of fossil-rich caves in the Cango Valley
Adam Foster, Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine: The allometric scaling of motor control in human evolution
Maggie Hoffman, Arizona State University: How does terrain influence wild chimpanzee social behavior?
Alexandra Kralick, Bryn Mawr College: How and why do female orangutans move differently from males?
Elly Lewerissa, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour: How protein degradation shapes the human brain through evolution
Rosa Munoz, University of Michigan: Possession in macaques
Danson Mwangi, Kenya Institute of Primate Research: Cultural/behavioral traits that mitigate risky meat consumption among the Turkana
Eduardo Paixão, Universidade de Algarve: Tracing Early Human Decision-Making in Percussive Tool Use
Sims Patton, George Washington University: How does violent exposure impact chimpanzee health and behavior?
Marta Pina, Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont: Finding ape-human ancestors in Nakali (Kenya)
Nicholas Post, Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History: Investigating evolutionary relationships among humans and our close fossil relatives
Blade Engda Redae, Arizona State University: When and why did hominins start to use stone tools?
Amara Reed, Birkbeck College, University of London: Did hominins interact with prehistoric animal migrations in East Africa?
John Rowan, University of Cambridge: Our earliest human ancestors in the Turkana Basin, Kenya
Roberta Salmi, University of Georgia: Genomics of a langur hybrid zone in Sri Lanka
Kathryn Sokolowski, University of Utah: Understanding seasonal mobility of early modern humans
Baonhu Tran, University of North Texas Health Science Center: The respiratory system in human thermoregulatory adaptation
Coen Wilson, LaTrobe University: How Middle Pleistocene hominins made stone tools on tough quartzite’s
Yossi Zaidner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Human evolution and dispersals in the Paleolithic of Central Asia
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