Jane Goodall

NAME Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall, better known as Jane Goodall.

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Renowned primatologist, ethologist, and conservationist, best known for her pioneering research on chimpanzees in Tanzania.

BIRTH Born on April 3, 1934, in Hampstead, London, England..

FAMILY BACKGROUND Her father, Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall (also known as Mortimer Herbert Goodall), was a businessman, well-known race car driver, and motor-racing enthusiast. Her mother was Margaret Myfanwe Joseph, a novelist who wrote under the pen name Vanne Morris-Goodall. Jane has one younger sister, Judy. 

During World War II, her parents divorced, and Jane, her mother, and sister moved to Bournemouth to live with her grandmother and aunts.

CHILDHOOD From a very young age, Jane was obsessed with animals. She was given a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee by her father, which sparked a lifelong interest in the species. She spent hours in her family’s garden in Bournemouth, England, observing and sketching animals and insects. At age 4, she famously disappeared for hours, later found in a henhouse watching hens to see how they laid eggs. Her family instilled values of honesty, compassion, and curiosity.

EDUCATION Jane attended Uplands School in Poole, receiving her school certificate in 1950 and a higher certificate in 1952. She left school at age 18 and worked as a secretary and waitress to save money for a trip to Africa. 

Though Goodall had no formal university education when she began her study of chimpanzees in 1960, her unprecedented observations were so significant that she was later admitted to the Ph.D. program in ethology at Newnham College, Cambridge University, in 1962. She was one of only a handful of people to be accepted to a Cambridge Ph.D. program without first having a Bachelor's degree. Goodall earned her Ph.D. in 1965.

CAREER RECORD 1957: Visited Kenya and met anthropologist Louis Leakey

1960: At age 26, began her landmark study of wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream Reserve (now National Park), Tanzania. On November 4, 1960, she observed chimpanzees using grass stalks as tools to extract termites, fundamentally changing scientific understanding

1977: Co-founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation

1991: Launched Roots & Shoots youth service program, now active in 70 countries

2002: Became UN Messenger of Peace

APPEARANCE Jane Goodall was tall, slender, and fair-skinned, with a signature gentle smile and kind eyes. As she aged, her white hair was often pulled back into a simple ponytail. 

Goodall in Tanzania in 2018 by Muhammad Mahdi Karim 

FASHION Known for her practical, functional, and sustainable fashion choices, Jane Goodall favored comfortable, earth-toned clothes suitable for outdoor work and constant travel. She typically wore trousers and shirts rather than dresses, though she noted with humor that she did own dresses. Goodall was most often seen wearing simple khaki or neutral-colored clothing, comfortable shoes, and a collared shirt.

She was also an advocate for conscious and sustainable clothing.

CHARACTER  Jane Goodall was defined by her calm determination, immense patience, and profound empathy for all living beings. Compassion and gentleness shaped her approach to both animals and people, while resilience and perseverance drove her lifelong mission of conservation. Despite her global fame, she remained private and reserved, yet used her platform powerfully for activism. 

Known for her exceptional observational skills and scientific rigor, she also possessed a rare ability to connect with people across cultures and backgrounds. 

Personality assessments often identified her as an INFJ (Myers-Briggs) and Enneagram Type 5, “The Investigator,” reflecting her introspective, analytical, and deeply committed nature. (1)

SPEAKING VOICE Jane Goodall had a calm, steady, and gentle speaking voice, often described as a blend between a kind teacher and wise professor. She was known for her passionate, articulate, and persuasive speaking style, warming audiences with vivid, descriptive storytelling. She famously greeted many audiences with chimpanzee vocalizations, demonstrating the sounds chimps make in the wild.

SENSE OF HUMOUR Jane Goodall possessed a good sense of humor and took media portrayals of herself in stride. She laughed about her practical wardrobe choices and maintained a light-hearted approach despite the seriousness of her conservation work.

One of Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons depicts two chimpanzees grooming, with one discovering a blonde human hair and quipping, “Conducting a little more ‘research’ with that Jane Goodall tramp?” At the time, Goodall was in Africa. The Jane Goodall Institute considered the cartoon offensive and had lawyers draft a protest letter, calling it an “atrocity.” However, when Goodall herself returned and saw it, she found the cartoon amusing.

Since then, proceeds from sales of a T-shirt featuring the cartoon have gone to the Jane Goodall Institute. Goodall even contributed the preface to The Far Side Gallery 5, offering her perspective on the controversy, with the institute’s original letter reproduced alongside the cartoon in the complete Far Side collection. She praised Larson’s creativity, noting how his work often highlighted parallels between human and animal behavior.

Goodall often used self-deprecating remarks and amusing anecdotes from her time in the field to connect with her audience.

RELATIONSHIPS Jane Goodall married twice. Her first wedding took place on March 28, 1964, at Chelsea Old Church in London, England. She married Baron Hugo van Lawick, a Dutch wildlife photographer. They had a son, Hugo Eric Louis (nicknamed "Grub") in 1967. 

Van Lawick (middle) in Serengeti National Park in 1969

Her second wedding was in 1975, when she married Derek Bryceson, a Tanzanian parliamentarian and director of the national park system, who helped establish Gombe Stream National Park. Their wedding took place in Tanzania.

Bryceson died of cancer in 1980. Jane has not remarried since then. Both husbands were supportive of her work.

MONEY AND FAME Through her research and National Geographic coverage, Jane achieved worldwide fame and recognition, gaining a significant platform which she used to advance conservation causes. 

She wasn't driven by wealth; her fame and resources were channeled into her non-profit organizations, the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots, to further her mission of conservation and education.

She received the 2021 Templeton Prize worth $1.56 million, which she pledged to use for her conservation projects.

FOOD AND DRINK Goodall  became vegetarian in the late 1960s after reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, realizing that meat represented "fear, pain and death". She transitioned to a vegan diet in the early 2000s. 

Her dietary choices were motivated by ethical concerns about animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and health benefits. She advocated for plant-based eating through her writing and activism, including co-authoring the cookbook #EatMeatless: Good for Animals, the Earth & All. (2)

Goodall's favorite Tanzanian vegetable was mchicha, and mangoes are her favorite fruits.

MUSIC AND ARTS Jane Goodall appreciated the arts and inspired musical works, including Stevie Nicks' 1994 song "Jane". She wholeheartedly supported young people's creativity and often appeared in documentaries and artistic projects about wildlife and the environment. She valueed the role of arts in environmental education and communication.

LITERATURE Jane Goodall was an acclaimed author. Her famous works include In the Shadow of Man (1971) an autobiography of her early research, and The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (1986), and more recently The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, which has been translated into over 20 languages. She also wrote numerous children's books and other non-fiction works related to her research and conservation efforts. Literature and writing have been central to her communication and teaching throughout her career.

RESEARCH AT GOMBE STREAM NATIONAL PARK On July 14, 1960, a 26-year-old Jane Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She was armed with little more than a notebook, a pair of keen eyes, and the sort of patience usually associated with saints. What she achieved there would upend everything we thought we knew about animals, and, rather inconveniently, about ourselves.

Social grooming of chimps observed in Gombe NP by Ikiwaner -

Gombe lies on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, a body of water so long and thin it looks like someone dropped a piece of blue ribbon between the mountains. It would become the stage for one of the most extraordinary natural dramas of the twentieth century.

Goodall wasn’t just watching chimpanzees—she was living among them. She studied their social squabbles, their child-rearing foibles, their dietary habits, and even their occasional acts of brutality. Unlike her colleagues at the time, who insisted on numbering animals as if they were filing cabinets, she named them—David Greybeard, Flo, and Goliath among them—and in doing so reminded the world that personality wasn’t a strictly human privilege.

Her first great revelation came on November 4, 1960, when she watched a chimpanzee calmly strip a twig and poke it into a termite mound. Here was an animal making a tool. Up until then, the official definition of humankind had been “Man the Toolmaker.” In a single afternoon, a chimpanzee in Tanzania quietly rewrote the anthropology textbooks. 

Image by Perplexity

She also discovered that chimpanzees were not the gentle, fruit-munching vegetarians we had fondly imagined. They hunted monkeys, shared meat, and organized raids with the chilling efficiency of a small paramilitary unit. Yet they were also tender: mothers nursed and fussed over their young for years, friendships formed and endured, and grooming sessions carried the social importance of a cocktail party.

Her approach was revolutionary in its simplicity. She sat. She watched. She took notes. Sometimes for fourteen hours a day. Slowly, the chimpanzees grew accustomed to her, and eventually allowed her a kind of membership in their society—the only human ever afforded such a privilege.

What began as one woman with a notebook has become the longest continuous study of wild chimpanzees in history, more than six decades and counting. The work at Gombe has not only mapped out chimpanzee societies across generations but has also provided a rallying point for global conservation. It gave rise to the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots, programs that link human welfare, environmental stewardship, and the well-being of other species.

Today, Gombe is not merely a park but a living archive of animal behavior and a beacon for conservationists everywhere. Thanks to Goodall, we no longer see chimpanzees as curiosities in zoos or characters in cartoons, but as close kin, separated from us by a mere whisker of DNA and by a great deal of hubris.

NATURE Nature formed the core of Jane Goodall's identity and life purpose. From her early childhood passion for animals to her lifelong advocacy for environmental preservation, she found spiritual meaning in the natural world. She worked tirelessly for conservation and believed in the interconnectedness of all living things.

PETS  As a child, Goodall had a dog named Rusty, who was her loyal companion. She considered him to be one of her most important early teachers about animal personalities and communication. Her love for animals extended to playing with dogs when visiting friends.

HOBBIES AND SPORTS In her youth, Jane enjoyed horse-riding and outdoor activities. As an adult, her interests included long walks in nature, writing, and gardening when possible. However, her demanding travel schedule of 300 days per year left little time for traditional hobbies.

SCIENCE AND MATHS Goodall's work redefined the scientific approach to studying animal behavior. By using a more empathetic, long-term observational method, she pushed the boundaries of ethology and primatology, leading to new discoveries that were initially met with skepticism but are now widely accepted.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY  Goodall approached life with a pragmatic, spiritual philosophy that values hope, compassion, and environmental stewardship. Though raised Christian, she later described herself as spiritual rather than religious, believing in a guiding universal force encountered most directly in nature. She emphasized the importance of individual action and collective responsibility for the planet.

ACTIVISM Jane Goodall did something rather extraordinary in the mid-1980s. After spending a quarter of a century peering through binoculars at chimpanzees in the forests of Gombe, she looked up and noticed the rest of the world was on fire. Forests were disappearing, chimpanzees were vanishing, and humans were behaving with their usual mixture of short-sightedness and astonishing ingenuity. So she packed away the field notebooks and turned herself into a full-time, globe-trotting advocate for the environment—an unlikely second act for a shy Englishwoman who once preferred the company of apes to people.

Founded to continue her chimpanzee research in 1977, the Jane Goodall Institute now operates in nearly 20 countries. It runs community programs across Africa, champions conservation, and provides proof that one determined woman with a ponytail can create an institution with the reach of a small multinational.

Goodall's global youth program, Roots & Shoots, began in 1991 with a group of 16 local teenagers meeting with her on her back porch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, encouraging them to care about animals and the planet. It blossomed into a global youth movement with tens of thousands of groups in more than 100 countries. The result: an army of children planting trees, picking up litter, and gently shaming their parents into better habits.

Goodall in 2009 with Hungarian Roots & Shoots group members by Csigabi

Goodall’s name is also attached to projects ranging from the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in the Republic of Congo (a sort of halfway house for apes) to TACARE, a program around Gombe that replants forests while helping local communities grow food sustainably. It’s conservation with a human face, and it works.

She spoke everywhere from classrooms to the United Nations about climate change and ecological collapse, at one point even working with NASA. She supported making “ecocide” a crime—legalese for wrecking the planet—and personally pledged to get five million trees into the ground, a goal she pursued with the zeal of someone determined to reforest half of Africa before lunch.

Goodall lobbied politicians, chastised corporations, and campaigned against airlines that ship animals like cargo. She traveled around 300 days a year, somehow managing to inspire people in school gymnasiums, parliaments, and international conferences without ever losing her patience—or her voice.

The results speak for themselves. Conservation is now as much about people as it is about animals, thanks largely to her. She empowered entire generations of children to believe they can make a difference. And she elevated the rights of animals and the health of ecosystems to subjects of mainstream conversation.

In short, Jane Goodall became something close to an environmental superhero. She didn't wear a cape—though she’d probably look rather good in one—but inspired millions with a message that is at once sobering and hopeful: that humans, if we put our minds to it, might just manage to save the planet after all. 

POLITICS While her second husband Derek Bryceson was a politician, Jane Goodall chose to focus her energy on conservation rather than formal political involvement. She used her platform to influence environmental policy and awareness globally.

SCANDAL Jane Goodall faced controversy in 2013 with her book Seeds of Hope, which contained plagiarized passages from various sources including Wikipedia, websites, and other publications. The book was delayed for corrections, and Goodall apologized for the "unintentional errors". (3)

She also faced criticism for her stance against GMO crops and gene editing, with some scientists arguing she strayed from evidence-based positions in areas outside her expertise.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Goodall had incredible energy and stamina, traveling over 300 days a year, even in her later years. She attributed her fitness to her vegan diet and purposeful lifestyle. 

Goodall had prosopagnosia, a condition that affects face recognition. 

HOMES Jane Goodall grew up in Bournemouth, England, in her family's Victorian house, which she always considered her primary home and where she felt most connected to her childhood memories. She also had a home in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she lived with her second husband Derek Bryceson and was primarily used for work purposes. Her son Hugo ("Grub") lives in the Tanzania compound with his family.

TRAVEL Jane Goodall traveled extensively, spending approximately 300 days per year on the road for lectures, conferences, and conservation efforts. She maintained this demanding schedule ever since completing her field work at Gombe in the 1980s. Despite saying she "hates travelling," she continued this pace driven by urgency about environmental issues. 

During the pandemic, she became "Virtual Jane," conducting meetings and presentations online from her childhood home in Bournemouth.

DEATH Jane Goodall passed away on October 1, 2025, at the age of 91, in California while on a U.S. speaking tour. She died of natural causes.

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Jane Goodall has been the subject of more than 40 films and documentaries, including the acclaimed 2017 documentary Jane and the IMAX film Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzee. 

She appeared on numerous television shows and has been featured in National Geographic publications extensively since the 1960s. Goodall maintained an active presence through podcasts, including Hopecast, and social media. She has inspired children's cartoons and continued to appear in media outlets advocating for conservation throughout her life..

ACHIEVEMENTS Discovery of tool use among chimpanzees (1960).

Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute (1977).

Initiated the Roots & Shoots youth program (1991).

Named a UN Messenger of Peace (2002).

Recipient of numerous honors, including Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).

Sources: (1) TrueYou Journal (2) Aarp (3) Knight Science Journalism