The Brief

TEMPE, Ariz. - It’s difficult to imagine Dr. Jane Goodall as anything but legendary, but Ian Gilby says that’s exactly how she started out: as an ordinary young woman.

The backstory:

In 1960, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey sent her to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to learn about chimpanzees and understand human origins.

"She famously had no training. And didn't really know how scientists did things and did it herself and really basically invented the field of primatology, or at least the modern field of primatology," said Gilby, a primatologist and associate professor at Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution & Social Change and a research scientist at the Institute of Human Origins.

Gilby noted that Leakey specifically chose a woman becaus

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