Brian Hare is a professor of
evolutionary anthropology
Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and ...
at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. He researches the
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
of
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
by studying both humans, our close relatives the
primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
s (especially
bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...
s and
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s), and species whose cognition converged with our own (primarily
domestic dog
The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is Domestication of the dog, derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's n ...
s). He founded and co-directs the Duke Canine Cognition Center.
Biography
Hare obtained his
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
degree in
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
and
Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
from
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
in 1998. As an undergraduate, he conducted research with
Michael Tomasello
Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University.
Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is c ...
, where he found that chimpanzees are sensitive to what other chimpanzees can and cannot see, and that domestic dogs can follow humans’ pointing gestures to find food.
Hare continued his study of primate and canid cognition at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, where he was advised by
Richard Wrangham
Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is an English anthropologist and primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking.
...
. In 2004, he obtained his
Ph.D
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...
in Biological Anthropology. He joined the
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (german: Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Plan ...
in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, where he founded the Hominoid Psychology Research Group. He studied great ape cognition in several African sanctuaries, including
bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...
s at
Lola ya Bonobo
Founded by Claudine André in 1994, Lola ya Bonobo is the world's only sanctuary for orphaned bonobos.
Since 2002, the sanctuary has been located just south of the suburb of Kimwenza at the Petites Chutes de la Lukaya, Kinshasa, in the Dem ...
and
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s at
Tchimpounga
The Tchimpounga Sanctuary, also known as the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, for primates is located on a coastal plain of savanna and forest in Pointe Noire, Republic of the Congo, and was built in 1992. The site covers an area of ...
and
Ngamba Island
Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, is an island sanctuary in Uganda, dedicated to the care of orphaned eastern chimpanzees, that have been rescued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Many of the chimpanzees were rescued from poachers and are unlik ...
.
Since 2008, Hare has been a professor at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. In 2009, he founded the
Duke Canine Cognition Center
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
, which has tested the cognitive abilities of pet dogs in the
Research Triangle
The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to ...
area as well as working dogs from organizations such as
Canine Companions for Independence. He has also researched
lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 exist ...
cognition at the
Duke Lemur Center
The Duke Lemur Center is an sanctuary for rare and endangered strepsirrhine primates, located at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is the largest sanctuary for strepsirrhine primates in the world.
The center is open to the public ...
.
Hare co-founded Dognition, a
citizen science
Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...
enterprise where dog owners play a variety of games with their dogs to test the dogs’ cognitive skills. With his wife,
Vanessa Woods
Vanessa Woods (born 1977) is an Australian science writer, author and journalist, and is the main Australian/New Zealand feature writer for the Discovery Channel.
A graduate of the Australian National University with a Master's degree in Scien ...
, Hare co-authored the popular science book ''The Genius of Dogs'', which was a New York Times Best Seller.
Publications
* Brian Hare and
Vanessa Woods
Vanessa Woods (born 1977) is an Australian science writer, author and journalist, and is the main Australian/New Zealand feature writer for the Discovery Channel.
A graduate of the Australian National University with a Master's degree in Scien ...
, "
Survival of the Friendliest: Natural selection for hypersocial traits enabled Earth's apex species to best Neandertals and other competitors", ''
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
'', vol. 323, no. 2 (August 2020), pp. 58–63.
Honors and awards
Hare was a 2004 recipient of the
Sofia Kovalevskaya Award
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows the Sofia Kovalevskaya Award every two years. Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891) was the first major Russian female mathematician, who made important contributions to mathematical analysis, ...
.
References
External links
Duke University PageDuke Canine Cognition CenterHominoid Psychology Research GroupDognition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hare, Brian
American animal welfare workers
Evolutionary psychologists
American cognitive scientists
American science writers
Harvard University alumni
Duke University faculty
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)