Jane Morris Goodall (born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; 3 April 1934, London, United Kingdom – 1 October 2025, Los Angeles, United States) was a British ethologist and primatologist. She is renowned for her field study of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, which she began in 1960 and continues to this day. Goodall pioneered the reevaluation of scientific definitions that had previously considered tool use and manufacture exclusive to humans, by documenting these abilities in chimpanzees.  

Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in London in 1934 to Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and Margaret Myfanwe Joseph. From an early age, Goodall showed a keen interest in the natural world. In 1957 she traveled to Kenya where she met paleontologist Dr Louis Leakey. After serving as his assistant, she began fieldwork in Gombe in 1960 to study chimpanzee behavior. Despite lacking formal academic qualifications, she was admitted directly into the PhD program at the University of Cambridge in 1962 and earned her doctorate in 1965 with a thesis titled "Behaviour of Wild Chimpanzees".  

On 14 July 1960, Goodall arrived in Gombe and began observing chimpanzees in their natural habitat. Her methodology—assigning individual names to chimpanzees and conducting close, prolonged observation—was regarded as a groundbreaking approach in primatology.  

In 1960 she documented chimpanzees modifying slender twigs to fish for termites, using them as tools. This discovery prompted Louis Leakey to remark that "we must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as humans." She also recorded complex social behaviors among chimpanzees including cooperation, mourning, and organized aggression.  

In 1977 she founded the Jane Goodall Institute to support research in Gombe and to advance conservation initiatives. In 1991 she launched the global Roots & Shoots program to engage young people in environmental protection and humanitarian efforts. In later years of her career, she became an international advocate on issues of habitat loss and environmental crises.  

Jane Goodall was married twice. She married wildlife photographer Baron Hugo van Lawick in 1964, with whom she had a son, Hugo Eric Louis (Grub). The couple divorced in 1974. She married Derek Bryceson in 1975; Bryceson died in 1980.  

Dr Jane Goodall died of natural causes in Los Angeles on 1 October 2025 at the age of 91. In recognition of her scientific contributions and activism, she was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2002 and awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2004. She has also received numerous international honors including the Kyoto Prize and the Benjamin Franklin Medal.