Origin Stories

Dr. Jane Goodall is a legend. She is a science hero, a trailblazing researcher who inspires people around the world. In this episode, Jane Goodall shares part of the story of how she went from working as a secretary to becoming the world's leading expert on chimpanzee behavior. In 2004, author and Leakey family biographer Virginia Morrell interviewed Jane Goodall for the Louis Leakey Centennial Oral History Project. This never before heard recording covers the time in Goodall's life from 1957 when she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, to November 1960 when she made her first groundbreaking discovery, one that changed the way we see chimpanzees as well as the way we define ourselves as humans. Links The Jane Goodall Institute The Leakey Foundation ROHO. The Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley Virginia Morrell Credits This episode was produced by Meredith Johnson and edited by Audrey Quinn, production help from Schuyler Swenson. Scoring and composition by He