Conversations with: Professor Rick Potts

Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Rick Potts, the Director of the Smithsonian Institution Human Origins Program! Rick joined the Smithsonian in 1985, and has since focused his research toward understanding how Earth’s environmental change affects early human adaptation. He formulated the well-received Variability Selection Hypothesis, proposing that hominin evolution responded to environmental instability,

Conversations with: Dr Ammie Kalan

This week’s guest is Dr Ammie Kalan, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology! Ammie is a postdoctoral researcher investigating chimpanzee culture and communication as part of the Pan African Project: The Cultured Chimpanzee. Over her career as a primatologist, Ammie has conducted fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Republic of Congo and