Galdikas, Biruté Mary

Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas is one of the renowned primatologists known as the “Trimates,” also referred to as “Leakey’s Angels.” While the late Jane Goodall focused on chimpanzees and the late Dian Fossey on gorillas, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who had sponsored Jane and Dian, agreed to choose Galdikas to study orangutans in their native habitat after she approached him and persuaded him she was the one for orangutans. 
Like Goodall, she became a leading authority on her chosen species. Also, like Goodall, she was only in her twenties when, with funding from the National Geographic Society and Leakey Foundation, she established Camp Leakey in Tanjung Putting Wildlife Reserve (now National Park), Indonesian Borneo. This was to become the site of the longest continuous field study of any mammal by a single principal investigator, spanning over five decades. Her pioneering research revealed key insights into Orangutan behavior, including their eight-year reproductive cycle, tool-use, diverse diet, and long life-span (up to 60-70 years), transforming scientific understanding of these elusive "people of the forest." 
Having pursued studies in psychology and zoology at the University of British Columbia and UCLA where she earned a Bachelor's degree Summa cum Laude in 1966 and a Master's in anthropology in 1969, she later completed her PhD at UCLA in 1978 and then became a Full Professor at Simon Fraser University. This position allowed her to combine teaching, research, and activism and to excel at all three. She was also appointed Professor Extraordinaire at Universitas Nasional in Jakarta, Indonesia.