Mini cv
Last seen without beard: June 2011
I worked in Kenya (Amboseli & Gilgil, 1981-84), Switzerland (University of Zürich, 1987-94), Germany (Max-Planck Institute, Seewiesen, 1990-98), Ivory Coast (Taï Monkey Project, 1988-2004), South-Africa (Loskop Dam Nature Reserve, 2006-2010) and France (Université de Strasbourg, 1998-2018) before retiring and returning to my native The Netherlands in 2018. I have been interested in the evolution of cooperation in all its forms throughout my career. Most of my empirical work was with free-ranging primates (baboons in Kenya; multiple forest species in Ivory Coast; vervet monkeys in South Africa). I was involved in some cooperation experiments with vervets (Strasbourg; South Africa) and with kea in captivity (Haidlhof, Austria). From my PhD onwards I have been busy developing a theory of ‘biological markets’ together with various colleagues, notably Peter Hammerstein.
Academic affiliations after retirement
Affiliated faculty, Cooperation and Conflict Lab, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, USA (2021 - )
Cooperation Science Network (2020 - )
Last academic appointment
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Strasbourg, France (1998 - 2018)
Sabbatical at the NIAS (The Netherlands)
I spent the academic year 2011 - 2012 as a Lorentz Fellow-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Wassenaar The Netherlands
Workshop in the Lorentz Center, Leiden (The Netherlands)
During my sabbatical I organized, together with Mark van Vugt (VU Amsterdam) a workshop "Cooperation in multi-partner settings: biological markets & social dilemmas" in the Lorentz Center in Leiden (16-20 January 2012).
Past international cooperations
Cooperation experiments with kea (Nestor nobilis), large parrots from New-Zealand held in aviaries at the Haidlhof, Austria. These experiments were conducted by students from Strasbourg under the supervision of Ludwig Huber, Gyula Gajdon and Raoul Schwing of the Messerli Research Institute, Veterinary Medical University Vienna, Austria
ABEERU (Applied Behavioural Ecology and Ecosystems Research Unit), a 'centre of excellence' within the School of Environmental Sciences, College for Agriculture & Environmental Sciences of the University of South-Africa (UNISA) at Pretoria
TECT (The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading). A EUROCORES-program of the European Science Foundation (ESF)
Download the initial TECT brochure (2008) and the final TECT brochure (2011)
COCOR (Cooperation in Corvids). A Collaborative Research Project within TECT
GEBACO (The Genetic Basis of Cooperation) A EU-Framework 6 – research programme (STREP-NEST ‘What it means to be human’)
INCORE (Integrating Cooperation Research across Europe) A EU-Framework 6 – Coordination Action programme (STREP-NEST ‘What it means to be human’)
Economic Behaviour in Vervet Monkeys. A cooperation with E.E.C. van Damme of the Center for Economic Research of the University of Tilburg, The Netherlands financed by the programme 'Evolution and Behaviour' of the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO). Runs from 2003-2007
Taï Monkey Project. A research program that I founded in 1991 to study the behavioural ecology and several other topics in eight monkey species in the Taï National Park, Ivory Coast. The program is associated with the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS) in Abidjan. In 2004 I left the program, but I still act as an adviser. A book on this project was published in 2007.
last update : 7 JAN 2021