Dr. John Mitani (1954- )
Brief biography
Oral history interview recorded May 7, 2024
Interviewer: Bernard A. Wood
John Mitani is likely unique in having conducted field studies of all of the extant apes at various field sites in Asia and Africa. His eclectic research interests cover a wide range of ape behavior. Mitani was the James N. Spuhler Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where he is now Professor Emeritus. After receiving his PhD from the University of California, Davis, in 1984, Mitani worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Peter Marler at The Rockefeller University, followed by two years on the faculty at that University’s Field Research Center for Ecology and Ethology. He moved back to the University of California, Davis, for one year before assuming a faculty position at the University of Michigan in 1990.
After his PhD thesis research on the mating and spacing behavior of gibbons and orangutans, Mitani conducted studies of male gibbon vocal behavior and orangutan behavior as a postdoc. In 1989, he made the transition to fieldwork in Africa. He began with studies of the vocal behavior of chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains. During that time, he also conducted fieldwork with bonobos at Wamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo and mountain gorillas at the Karisoke Research Station in Rwanda. In 1995, he initiated his more than three decade-long study of the Ngogo chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. His studies of the Ngogo chimpanzees have provided new insights into their life history, territoriality, hunting behavior, and male chimpanzee cooperation. Now that the Ngogo chimpanzee group has fissioned, the next 30 years promise new and unexpected findings.
John Mitani received five Leakey Foundation grants early in his career. He joined The Leakey Foundation’s Scientific Executive Committee in 2012, serving as co-chair from 2020 to 2023. During his time on the committee, he helped oversee the review and awarding of the foundation’s grants. He is now a Scientific Executive Committee Member Emeritus, and he remains involved with the foundation, advising on its climate initiative and Primate Research Fund, which supports long-term primate research field sites during gaps in funding or other emergency situations.
Among many awards and honors, he received the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Biological Anthropologists in 2022.
John Mitani Oral History Videos
Oral History Transcript
The transcript below is free to read and download.