Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share In Focus-Weekend | Naming chimps, making room: Jane Goodall’s wild legacy for women in science
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
In Focus-Weekend | Naming chimps, making room: Jane Goodall’s wild legacy for women in science
On a July morning in 1960, Jane Goodall stepped off a boat onto the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. She was 26, untrained by universities, armed only with binoculars, a notebook and patience. What she saw in the forests of Gombe in East Africa altered science itself: chimpanzees who shaped tools, who mourned, who loved. She gave them names and with that simple act, insisted on their individuality.
But Goodall did more than open a window into the lives of chimpanzees. She opened doors for women. In an era when female scientists were almost absent, she, alongside gorilla researcher Dian Fossey and orangutan expert Biruté Galdikas, staked a claim in a field dominated by men. Reluctant at first, passionate in time, she traded the intimacy of the forest for activism on world stages, becoming a gentle but firm voice for nature and for children who would inherit it.
On Wednesday (October 1, 2025), Jane Goodall died at 91. She was still on tour, still speaking for the wild. Will we carry her hope and continue the path she opened for women in science? In this weekender episode, we talk about how Goodall’s life reshaped research, storytelling and the role of women in conservation.
Guests: Catherine Crockford, primatologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Lyon; Neha Sinha, wildlife biologist, conservationist, and author, based in Delhi
Host: Anupama Chandrasekaran
Produced and edited by Jude Francis Weston
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
View all episodes
By The Hindu
4.5
3737 ratings
On a July morning in 1960, Jane Goodall stepped off a boat onto the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. She was 26, untrained by universities, armed only with binoculars, a notebook and patience. What she saw in the forests of Gombe in East Africa altered science itself: chimpanzees who shaped tools, who mourned, who loved. She gave them names and with that simple act, insisted on their individuality.
But Goodall did more than open a window into the lives of chimpanzees. She opened doors for women. In an era when female scientists were almost absent, she, alongside gorilla researcher Dian Fossey and orangutan expert Biruté Galdikas, staked a claim in a field dominated by men. Reluctant at first, passionate in time, she traded the intimacy of the forest for activism on world stages, becoming a gentle but firm voice for nature and for children who would inherit it.
On Wednesday (October 1, 2025), Jane Goodall died at 91. She was still on tour, still speaking for the wild. Will we carry her hope and continue the path she opened for women in science? In this weekender episode, we talk about how Goodall’s life reshaped research, storytelling and the role of women in conservation.
Guests: Catherine Crockford, primatologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Lyon; Neha Sinha, wildlife biologist, conservationist, and author, based in Delhi
Host: Anupama Chandrasekaran
Produced and edited by Jude Francis Weston
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More shows like In Focus by The Hindu
View all
Cyrus Says
154 Listeners
Moneycontrol Podcast
11 Listeners
3 Things
56 Listeners
The Habit Coach with Ashdin Doctor
58 Listeners
ThePrint
88 Listeners
The Internet Said So
104 Listeners
Finshots Daily
43 Listeners
Woice with Warikoo Podcast
23 Listeners
दिनभर: पूरा दिन,पूरी ख़बर (Dinbhar)
12 Listeners
Top of the Morning
3 Listeners
The Morning Brief
12 Listeners
A Century Of Stories
9 Listeners
Daybreak
9 Listeners
ANI Podcast with Smita Prakash
95 Listeners
The Daily Brief
12 Listeners