From left, Shahrina Chowdhury, Marina Cords, Sergio Almécija
Everyone attending the 2:00 PM matinee performance on Saturday, March 22 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre of HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?, the witty new comedy by Michael Walek, is encouraged to stay afterward for a stimulating discussion about the play with primatologists Shahrina Chowdhury (Brooklyn College) and Marina Cords (Columbia University). Sergio Almécija, Senior Research Scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, will moderate a discussion about the life and achievements of Jane Goodall, and the cultural, historical, political, and scientific background of the play.
When twenty-six-year-old Jane Goodall began her expedition to study chimpanzees in Tanganyika in 1960, the government insisted she must bring a chaperone. So, she brought her mother. In HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER? playwright Michael Walek mines notes by both Jane and her mother to create a sparkling comedy about the process of scientific discovery: what Jane learned about the behavior of chimpanzees and how the duo ingeniously improvised life in the wild.
The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and join the discussion.
HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER?, written by Michael Walek and directed by Linsay Firman, is the Spring 2025 mainstage production of the EST/Sloan Project, EST’s partnership with The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop new plays “exploring the world of science and technology,” an initiative now in its twenty-fifth year.
About the Panelists
Dr. Shahrina Chowdhury
Shahrina Chowdhury is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brooklyn College, CUNY and Doctoral Faculty in Anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on the behavior, ecology and endocrinology of nonhuman primates. Her research employs a comparative perspective to understand the evolution of complex sociality in primates. The main focus of her research is to understand behavioral variation by examining its underlying physiological basis, employing hormones as a tool to examine responses of primates to various challenges. She has studied chacma baboons in South Africa, investigating the effects of social, anthropogenic, and environmental factors on stress physiology and the use of behavioral flexibility as a coping mechanism for stress alleviation. Currently, as Co-Director of the Filoha Hamadryas Project in Ethiopia, she collaborates on a long-term field study of hamadryas baboons with the goal of understanding the evolution of a complex multi-level society. Chowdhury is also on the faculty for the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP).
Dr. Marina Cords
Marina Cords is a professor in Columbia University’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology. Her area of expertise is the behavioral ecology and social behavior of primates, especially monkeys. Trained as a zoologist, her special interest in primates developed because these animals have long lives and good memories, and thus the potential for forming long-lasting social ties. She has led a 45-year field study of wild blue monkeys in the Kakamega Forest, a rain forest in western Kenya. She has published over a hundred scientific works, focusing on social and reproductive behavior, life history and ecology. Her research has been supported by various funding organizations, including the National Science Foundation and multiple private foundations. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She also works with her local field team to promote environmental education and conservation in the area around the research site.
About the Moderator
Dr. Sergio Almécija
Sergio Almécija is a researcher studying the evolution of apes and humans. Currently based at the American Museum of Natural History (NYC), his career started in his home country of Spain, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Catalan Institute of Paleontology (Barcelona), before moving to the US in 2010. Since then, he’s also worked at Stony Brook University and The George Washington University. Sergio’s research combines paleontological and primatological fieldwork (in Africa, Asia, and Europe), as well as morphometric and evolutionary modeling analyses. Over the last decade, his research has focused on investigating the nature of the last common ancestor from which living apes and humans evolved around 7-9 million years ago. He is the editor of Humans: Perspectives on our Evolution from World Experts (2023).
HAVE YOU MET JANE GOODALL AND HER MOTHER? began previews on March 5 and runs through March 30. You can purchase tickets here.
