Love and War: What Can We Learn from Chimpanzees

What is the talk about?

What can the social lives of chimps teach us about our own? In the next Hot Science - Cool Talks, primatologists Dr. Aaron Sandel and Isabelle Clark share their first hand accounts of living amongst a chimpanzee social group. Discover how our closest ape relatives navigate social bonds, manage violence, and build connections.  

This is a featured event in the 2025 Texas Science Festival. Environmental Science Institute is a proud partner of the Festival, organized by The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences.

About our presenters

Dr. Aaron Sandel

Aaron Sandel is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at UT Austin whose research explores the social bonds and emotions of our closest ape relatives. He is a co-director of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project and has studied chimpanzees in Uganda since 2012. He also runs the Primate Ethology and Endocrinology Lab at UT Austin.

Isabelle Clark

Isabelle Clark is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at UT Austin and an emerging primatologist who researches chimpanzee behavior. Her focus is on how in-group/out-group identities emerge during the lives of young chimpanzees, and she analyzes social behavior and physiology to track social and group dynamics of the Ngogo chimpanzees.