Crickette Sanz studied experimental
psychology at Central Washington University
in Ellensburg, Washington. She spent several
years working at the Chimpanzee and Human
Communication Institute during her
undergraduate and graduate career. In 1999,
Sanz began studies in biological
anthropology at Washington University in
Saint Louis, Missouri. Her dissertation
research focused on the behavioral ecology
of wild chimpanzees in the Goualougo
Triangle, Republic of Congo. After obtaining
her doctoral degree, Sanz spent five years
working as a post-doctoral research fellow
in the Primatology Department of the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Currently,
she is an assistant professor in the
Department of Anthropology at Washington
University in Saint Louis.
She and David Morgan
are co-directors of the Goualougo Triangle
Ape Project in the Nouabal-Ndoki National
Park, Republic of Congo. In 1999, the
project was initiated to increase our
knowledge of the central subspecies of
chimpanzee and use this information to
address the threats facing these apes in
western equatorial Africa. The scope of the
project was recently expanded to include a
focus on the western lowland gorillas that
coexist with chimpanzees throughout most of
central Africa. Although northern Congo has
long been considered a stronghold for ape
conservation, great apes in this region are
at risk of disease epidemics, commercial
bushmeat hunting, and mechanized logging.
The Goualougo Triangle Ape Project's
objectives involve long-term, site-based
research and conservation activities which
have the aim of effectively addressing the
major threats to great apes in the Congo
Basin.
Sanz's research focuses on primate
behavioral ecology, chimpanzee tool
technology, and great ape conservation. She
is a research associate of the Wildlife
Conservation Society's International Program
in Republic of Congo and an active member of
International Union for Conservation of
Nature's Primate Specialist Group on Great
Apes.
