Education
Dunbar, the son of an engineer, was educated at Magdalen College School, Brackley. He went on to study at Magdalen College, Oxford, where his teachers included Niko Tinbergen; he completed his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Philosophy in 1969. Dunbar then went on to the Department of Psychology of the University of Bristol and completed his PhD in 1974 on the Social organization, social organisation of the gelada, ''Theropithecus gelada'', a monkey that is a close relative to baboons. He spent two years as a freelance science writer. Dunbar told BBC Radio interviewer Jim Al-Khalili in ''The Life Scientific'' in 2019 that he "got his first real job" only at the age of 40.Academic career
Dunbar's academic and research career includes the University of Bristol, University of Cambridge from 1977 until 1982, and University College London from 1987 until 1994. In 1994, Dunbar became Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at University of Liverpool, but he left Liverpool in 2007 to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford. Dunbar was formerly co-director of the British Academy Centenary Research Project (BACRP) "From Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain" and was involved in the BACRP "Identifying the Universal Religious Repertoire". Digital versions of selected published articles authored or co-authored by him are available from the University of Liverpool Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioural Ecology Research Group. In 2015, Dunbar was awarded the Huxley Memorial Medal—established in 1900 in memory of Thomas Henry Huxley—for services to anthropology by the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the highest honour at the disposal of the RAI. Dunbar is also a Humanists UK Distinguished Supporter of Humanism.Awards and honours
* 2015, Huxley Memorial Medal, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland * 1998, Elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) * 1994, ''ad hominem'' Chair, Psychology, University of LiverpoolIn popular culture
Dunbar's work is mentioned in The Big Bang Theory, Season 4, Episode 20 ("The Herb Garden Germination"), when Amy Farrah Fowler is talking with Sheldon Cooper while listening to a lecture by Brian Greene (2011). Dunbar is a featured character in the adaptation of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind into graphic novel (2020). Dunbar's work is described in the epilogue of Blake Crouch's novel Upgrade (2022).References
Published books
* Dunbar. 1984. ''Reproductive Decisions: An Economic Analysis of Gelada Baboon Social Strategies''. Princeton University Press * Dunbar. 1987. ''Demography and Reproduction''. In ''Primate Societies''. Barbara Smuts, Smuts, B.B., Cheney, D.L., Seyfarth, R.M., Richard Wrangham, Wrangham, R.W., Struhsaker, T.T. (eds). Chicago & London:University of Chicago Press. pp. 240–249 * Dunbar. 1988. ''Primate Social Systems''. Chapman Hall and Yale University Press * Robert Foley (academic), Foley, Robert & Dunbar, Robin (14 October 1989). "Beyond the bones of contention". ''New Scientist'' Vol.124 (No.1686) pp. 21–25. * Dunbar. 1996External links