ABRP's team of Senior and Junior Observers in 2025
Project Directors
Susan Alberts
Susan Alberts is a Director of the project. Susan is the Robert F. Durden Distinguished Professor of Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University. She works on questions at the interface of behavior, life history, demography, and genetics.
Beth Archie
Beth Archie is a Director of the project. She is also a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at University of Notre Dame. Beth is interested in the evolution of social relationships, especially as they pertain to health and disease. She is also interested in the evolution and ecology of the microbiome.
Jenny Tung
Jenny Tung is a Director of the project. She is also the Director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a Professor in the Departments of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology at Duke University. Jenny uses genetic and genomic tools to shed light on behavioral and evolutionary questions.
Jeanne Altmann
Jeanne Altmann is Director Emerita of the project. She founded ABRP with Stuart Altmann in 1971. Dr. Altmann is currently the Eugene Higgins Professor Emerita and a Senior Scholar in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. She is interested in a range of questions in ecology, physiology, and evolution.
Senior field team
Lilian Musembei
Lilian Musembei is ABRP's our Project Manager in Amboseli. She is responsible for the day-to-day management of our data collection and other activities at our field site. Lilian has a M.Sc. in Animal Genetics and Breeding from the University of Nairobi and received her Bachelor’s degree in education from the University of EldoretShe has been with the project since 2024.
Kinyua Warutere
Kinyua Warutere is the most experienced Senior Observer and is our Assistant Project Manager. He has been with the project since 1995.
Daniel Kanai
Daniel Kanai is a Senior Observer in Training who joined the project in 2024.
Meet the Researchers from Grand Passage Media Inc. by George Flak, Caitlin Starowicz and Mark Starowicz on Vimeo.
Junior field team
Gideon Marinka
Gideon Marinka helps to manage our fleet of vehicles and is an assistant to the senior field team. He has been with the project since 1991.
Benard Oyath
Benard Ochieng’ Oyath is an assistant to the senior field team. He is responsible for many computer-related tasks in our field camp in Amboseli. He has been with the project since 2009.
Alex Meloimet
Alex Meloimet is the newest member of the Junior Field Team. He is an assistant to the senior field team.
Camp support team
Nkii Lenkai
Nkii Lenkai cooks and provides essential camp maintenance and support.
Sakimba Mpute
Sakimba Mpute is support staff.
Moonyoi Parstau
Moonyoi Parstau is support staff.
Ningori Likam
Ningori Likam is support staff.
Nairobi-based staff and collaborators
Tim Wango
Tim Wango manages the hormone lab at the University of Nairobi and provides logistical support with permit applications, shipping samples, and several other items in Nairobi.
Vivian Oudu
Vivian assists in preparing fecal samples for hormone analysis, and helps Tim with logistical support in Nairobi.
Mercy Akinyi
Mercy Akinyi is a veterinarian and research scientist in Kenya. Her research interests are focused on quantifying disease prevalence and understanding the sources of variance in disease risk among natural populations of non-human primates.
Database designer
Karl Pinc
Karl helped design and implement our online, long-term database called BABASE, beginning in the early 1990s and extending through the early 2000s. Karl is no longer involved with the day-to-day maintenance of the database, but he assists with special projects. His foundational work put us years ahead of where we’d otherwise be in terms of our ability to maintain and analyze our data.
US support staff
Jake Gordon
Jake is a data manager at Duke. He manages the behavioral and group movement data and the ABRP's archives of tissues, DNA, and RNA. He is also the current database manager and designer.
Caitlin Broderick
Caitlin is a data and lab manager in the Archie lab and maintains the University of Notre Dame portion of BABASE. She has her Ph.D. from Kansas State University. She also maintains this webpage.
Kristen Gerondelis
Kristen is the Project Coordinator, working under Susan Alberts. She oversees accounting and personnel aspects of the project, working closely with the local Kenyan staff. She helps coordinate efforts between the project directors, US support staff, and local Kenyan staff to ensure that the needs of the project are met.
Laurence Gesquiere
Laurence manages the hormone research at in the Alberts Lab at Duke University and runs the hormone assay lab. She is interested in hormonal and behavioral changes at puberty and using fecal glucocorticoids to measure environmental stress.
Emeritus
Raphael Mututua
Raphael Mututua was the ABRP's Project Manager. He started working with the project in 1981 and served in many roles retiring in 2024.
Serah Sayialel
Serah Sayialel was our second in command with respect to management. She was a Senior Observer with the project from 1989 until her retirement in 2019.
Long'ida Siodi
Long'ida Siodi was a field assistant for 10 years before being promoted to Senior Observer in 2019. He left the project in 2024.
