Curriculum Vitae
Curriculum Vitae
PD Dr. Claudio Tennie
Tools and Culture among Early Hominins
Department for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology
University of Tübingen
Hölderlinstrasse 12
72074 Tübingen
Germany
Professional biography
2024
Triple-Habilitation ("PD") at the University of Tübingen in: prehistory and early history; psychology; behavioural biology and comparative biocognition.
2017 - current
Permanent research group Leader: "Tools and Culture among Early Hominins", Department for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Germany
2020 - current
Member of DFG Center for Advanced Studies”Words, Bones, Genes and Tools” (WoBoGeTo), Tübingen, Germany.
2013 - current
Adjunct Scientist, Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, USA
2012 - 2017
Research-focused Lecturer (Birmingham Fellow), University of Birmingham, UK
School of Psychology.
Also became Associate of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) during that time.
2009 - 2012
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Postdoctoral research fellow
2006 - 2012
Carried out studies with chimpanzees in Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Uganda (4 trips, totalling 8 months) – plus field project in western Uganda in 2006
2004 - 2009
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Ph.D.-student and zoo-labcoordinator at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre
Ph.D. in Biology - Göttingen University, Germany - 20.11.2009, titled:
"Human culture versus great ape traditions: Mechanisms of observational learning in human children and great apes"
Supervised by Prof. Michael Tomasello and Dr. Josep Call; examined by Prof. Julia Fischer and Prof. Michael Waldmann.
2003 - 2004
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Research Assistant
2002 - 2003
University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Diploma thesis on observational learning in all genera of great apes
(studies performed at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre in Leipzig, Germany)
Professional services
2020 - 2022
Coordinator of EVEREST graduate program at the University of Tübingen
2020 - ongoing
Treasurer of the Gesellschaft für Primatologie
2019
Co-organiser of ETHO2020 conference at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
2017 - ongoing
Budgeting and research supervision for ERC Starting Grant STONECULT
2017 - ongoing
Co-organiser for the colloquium for Early Prehistory at the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
2016
Internal examiner on PhD viva (Biosciences; University of Birmingham)
Co-organiser of “Cumulative Culture” conference in June 2016, University of Birmingham.
Co-organiser of workshop on “Zone of Latent Solutions” concept with Michael Haslam's ERC Research Group (Oxford), held at the University of Birmingham.
Invited participant for EPRSC workshop on the development of a new research scheme - "human-like computing", held in Bristol, UK.
2015 - 2016
Personal tutor for 24 students (year 1-3)
2014 - 2015
Personal tutor for 16 students (year 1-2)
2014 - 2017
Budgeting and research supervision for ESRC Future Research Leader Grant ES/K008625/1
2009 - 2011
Organiser of speakers for regular fortnightly labmeetings
2005 - 2007
Established and managed research collaboration at the Tiergarten Nürnberg on dolphin cognition
2005 - 2006
Established and managed research collaboration at the Wilhelma (Stuttgart zoo) on gorilla cognition
2004 - 2009
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Half-time zoo-labcoordinator at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre
Responsibilities included, but were not restricted to: supervision, coordination and organization of studies, research assistants, students and interns. General organisation and management of the WKPRC & administrative liaison between zoo and MPI management (weekly meetings).
2004 - 2008
Supervised and managed enrichment activities for the great apes housed at the WKPRC.
2003 - 2005
Organised speakers for fortnightly labmeetings
2003 - 2004
Organised the Animal Cognition Reading Group ("ACRG")
Invited academic talks
2023
Wuppertaler Zoogespräche, Philosophisches Seminar Bergische Universität Wuppertal / Zoo Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany.
Tennie: “Menschen und Menschenaffen in ihrer Kultur”
XSCAPE Material Minds Project; PI Andy Clark Seminar, University of Sussex, UK.
Tennie: “The standard story of ape culture proved incorrect”
Institute of Evolution and Ecology (EvE) Seminar, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “Learning from the past: the cultural leap that made us human”
Prehistorical colloquium, University of Cologne, Germany.
Tennie & Snyder: “Experimental investigations into humanity's cultural origins”
Seminar of Comparative Cultural Psychology Department (Haun) at MPI EVA, Leipzig, Germany.
Tennie: “From ape-like culture to modern human culture: how human apes specialised in culturally evolving know-how”
2022
Archaeology Monday Lunchtime Seminar, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Tennie: “Cultural evolution of know-how – absent in non-human great apes, but present (late) in the hominin lineage”
IAST General Seminar, IAST, Toulouse, France.
Tennie: “Cumulative cultural evolution of know-how shows a late onset and a restriction to the human ape”
Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, Berlin, Germany.
Tennie: “Der Beginn der menschlichen kulturellen Evolution erfolgte spät - nach einer langen “Tierkultur”-Phase”
Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB) Seminar, Faro, Portugal.
Tennie: “How to best describe ape cultures”
Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB) Seminar, Faro, Portugal.
Tennie: “An ape-informed approach to early stone tools”
Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zürich, Switzerland.
Tennie: “Cultural evolution of know-how – a late onset and a restriction to the human ape."
CogSci colloquium, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “Cumulative cultural evolution of know-how”
School of Psychology and Neuroscience Seminar, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland, UK.
Tennie: “Primate cumulative cultural evolution of know how is rare”
2021
"Forschungskolloquium über neuere Ergebnisse der Psychologie” Seminar at the Department of Psychology, Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: " Non-human great ape cultures and their underlying learning mechanisms”
Ur- und Frühgeschichte Institutskolloqium, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “What we have done since arriving in Tübingen” – an update on recent work.
Words, Bones, Genes and Tools (WoBoGeTo) conference 2021, Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “A behavioural biology account of Early Stone Tools”
Musik Fakultät, Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany. Tennie “Culture requires cultural transmission”
Behavioral Ecology and Evolution Research Seminar, University of Lethbridge, Canada.
Tennie: “Ape cultures”
Archaeology Journal Club, George Washington University, USA.
Tennie: “The method of local restriction and its relevance for hominin cultures”
Talk at group seminar of Dr. Charely Wu, Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: ““Do ape-raised apes ape apes?” – on the importance of determining the underlying learning mechanisms of ape cultures”
Philosophy seminar Prof Hong Yu Wong, Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “The Method of Local Restriction - Looking for signs of cumulative culture in great apes”
"Conjectures and Refutations” Seminar at London School of Economics, London, UK.
Tennie: “Apes do not culturally evolve their know-how”
2020
The Cognition, Behavior & Evolution Network (CBEN) 2020 Talk Series (Online).
Tennie: “How great ape cultures come about and how they are maintained”
Primarch workshop 2020, Tübingen (organised by Tennie's research group).
Tennie: “The Cultural evolution of know-how vs. the cultural evolution of know-where, know-when, know-what”
Symposium “past cognition” at CogSci (worldwide) 2020
Tennie: “Cultural evolution requires cultural transmission – which evolved late in the human lineage”
2019
Workshop "The phylogeny and ontogeny of mind and action" at University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: "Action copying - not just child's play"
Workshop “From Animal to Human Cognition”, at University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “Why is it important that apes do not spontaneously copy novel action?”
Philosophy Seminar at the University of Warwick, UK.
Tennie: "Action copying in humans and other apes
(and the last common ancestor)"
Kollegtagung of the Lebenswissenschaftliches Kolleg of the Studientstiftung des deutschen Volkes in Naumburg, Germany.
Tennie: “Werkzeugkulturen bei Menschenaffen?”
2018
INA colloquium, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie & McPherron: “The cultural status of Early Stone Tools revisited”
Words Bones Genes Tools Colloquium, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “Using cognitive cladistics to explain the “unimaginable monotony” of early stone tools”
Hilgendorf Lecture Series, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “The ancestral reconstruction of early hominin culture using recent findings from comparative cognition”
EvoLang 2018 Workshop: “The 'Stuff' of Language”, Torun, Poland.
Tennie: “Early Stone Tools: non-cultural, (minimally) cultural or culture-dependent traits?”
8th interdisciplinary meeting “Anthropologie der Religion(en)” at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.
Tennie: “Religion ist soziale Kultur – besitzen andere Menschenaffen die notwendigen minimalen Voraussetzungen für derartige Kulturformen?”
Seminar at the Institute for Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie: “Do non-human great apes transmit behaviour culturally?”
2017
Symposium Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Tennie: “Insights into the evolution of human culture from the study of great ape cultures”
“The Evolution of a Social Brain” workshop CIN / Forum Scientiarum, Tübingen, Germany
Tennie: “Nichtmenschliche Affenkulturen bestehen aus statischen Verhaltensweisen“
Culture and Cognition Workshop of the Primate Cognition Research Group, University of Göttingen, Germany Tennie: “Culturally dependent behaviour requires high fidelity copying”
2016
Keynote talk presented at Chimpanzee in Context Symposium in August 2016, Chicago, USA.
Tennie: “Chimpanzee tool-use: cultural, but not culture-dependent”
Psychology Manchester Seminar Series, University of Manchester, UK.
Tennie: “Are chimpanzee tools cultural?”
Abteilungskolloquium Ältere Urgeschichte, University of Tuebingen, Germany.
Tennie: “Mechanisms matter: cumulative culture requires high fidelity copying”
The Evolution of Social Complexity Colloquium, Biosocial Complexity Initiative, Arizona State University, USA Tennie: "Human, ape and hominin culture: principally the same or fundamentally different?"
2015
"The Origins and Transmission of Culture" conference at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Tennie: "Human culture: (still) alien to chimpanzee culture"
“Der Mensch, ein Tier? Das Tier, ein Mensch?“ 4. Wittener Kolloquium für Humanismus, Medizin und Philosophie at the University Witten/Herdecke, Germany.
Tennie: “Kulturleistungen bei Mensch und Menschenaffe: gradueller oder prinzipieller Unterschied?“
2014
Biological Anthropology Summer Lectures at the University of Kent, UK.
Tennie: "Chimpanzees may not imitate because their cultures are not opaque"
Workshop “Coordination, Collaboration and Cooperation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives” – organised by Federica Amici and Luca Bietti at the MPI EVA in Leipzig, Germany.
Jensen & Tennie: “Caring enough to help and share – a human distinction”
2013
Madingley Seminar, University of Cambridge, UK.
Tennie: "Non-human great apes may not need the skill that it takes to develop cumulative culture"
Biological Anthropology Seminar Series at the University College London, London, UK
Tennie: "Chimpanzees’ social learning skills – implications for the evolution of cumulative culture"
Seminar series at the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, USA
Tennie: "A critical view of great apes' spontaneous imitative skills"
Seminar series at the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, University of Exeter, UK.
Tennie: "What kind of culture do great apes have?"
2012
NIH R25 Lecture Series at the The Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA.
Tennie: "How much individual learning is involved in chimpanzee culture?"
"Brain & Behaviour" seminar at the University Bielefeld, Germany.
Tennie: "Culture does not explain the form – but the distribution – of wild great ape behaviour"
2011
"The Nature of Culture Symposium“ organized by ROCEEH ("The role of culture in early expansions of humans" – project funded by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences), in Tübingen, Germany.
Tennie, Braun & McPherron: “Cumulative culture – cognitive and social prerequisites and possible material outcomes“
Seminar Series by the School of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Tennie: “A latent solutions approach may explain great ape cultures in the wild”
2010
“Anthropology and Ethology” Workshop. Lower Saxonian Department of Preservation of Ancient Monuments, Hannover, Germany.
Tennie: "An ape cognition perspective on early artefacts"
Anthropological Institute & Museum, University of Zürich, Switzerland.
Tennie: “The zone of latent solutions hypothesis”
Annual gathering of the Scottish Primate Research Group at The Burn in Glensk, Scotland.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: “Zones of latent solutions”
2009
Cooperative Human Robot Interaction Systems (CHRIS) workshop, Leipzig, Germany.
Tennie: “An introduction into social learning”
Reputation management workshop, Arhus, Denmark.
Tennie: "Reputation in apes?"
2008
Evolution, Development and Intentional Control of Imitation (EDICI) workshop, Vienna, Austria.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: “Cumulative culture: task difficulty and action copying”
2006
Biology department, University of Marburg, Germany.
Tennie: “Culture in apes?”
Primatology department, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Tennie, Hedwig, Call & Tomasello: “Nettle eating revisited”
Academic Talks
(Posters are not listed)
2023
ASAB Twitter conference (via twitter threads), www.
Tennie: “Can non-human apes enter the stone age on their own accord?”
Behaviour conference 2023, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany.
Tennie: “A new framework for social learning based on the type of information that is transmitted”
Tennie: “Individual vs. social learning: a false dichotomy”
2022
Joint Conference of the European Federation for Primatology and the Gesellschaft für Primatologie at Royal Burgers' Zoo, Arnhem, Netherlands.
Tennie: “Which ape behavioural forms might require copying? Introducing the Method of Local Restriction.”
Cultural Evolution Society (CES) conference 2022, Aarhus, Denmark.
Tennie: “Early knapping techniques do not require know-how copying”
Culture Conference 2023, Zürich, Switzerland.
Tennie: “Early knapping techniques are an unreliable indicator for know-how copying”
2021
Animal Behaviour Society 2021 twitter conference (technically, a thread, not a talk).
Tennie: “Apes do not naturally copy know how”
Cultural Evolution Society (CES) Meeting 2021, Sapporo, Japan.
Tennie: “Unenculturated chimpanzees fail to produce and use sharp stone tools in the absence of know-how demonstrations”
Culture conference 2021, Stirling, UK (online conference).
Tennie: “How likely are self-enculturation effects in apes and early hominins?”
European Society for the study of Human Evolution (ESHE) 2021 meeting (online)
Tennie: “Chimpanzees fail to spontaneously produce and use sharp-edged stone tools”
2020
Virtual ESHE 2020
Tennie et al. “Further evidence for a late onset of cumulative culture: Ape cultures do not require copying of know-how”
2018
Cultural Evolution Society meeting 2018, Tempe, Arizona.
Tennie: “The best explanation for the stasis in early hominin stone tool forms is a lack of copying mechanisms”
2017
European Federation for Primatology Meeting, University of Strasbourg, France
Tennie: “Early Hominin Cultures - Based on High Fidelity Transmission?”
European Society for the study of Human Evolution Meeting, Leiden, Netherlands
Tennie, Braun & McPherron: “A possible explanation for stasis in early hominin artefacts – using extant primates as an example”
“Behaviour” - joint meeting of the International Ethological Conference (IEC) and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB), Estoril, Portugal
Tennie & Clay: “A test for over-imitation in human children and bonobos”
Mike Tomasello Farewell Symposium, MPI EVA, Leipzig, Germany
Tennie: “Imitation then and now: is imitation still a key mechanism in explaining human behaviour?”
2016
Talk to be presented at Joint meeting of the International Primatological Society and the American Society of Primatologists in August 2016, Chicago, USA.
Tennie: “Do apes copy, or do they reinvent?”
6th BCCCD meeting at the CEU - Budapest, Hungary.
Clay, Reindl and Tennie: “The social transmission of culture – developmental and comparative perspectives” (Part of a symposium on the origins and development of cumulative culture organized by Zanna Clay, Eva Reindl & Claudio Tennie)
Social cognition and neuroscience (SCoNe) seminar, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham.
Tennie: "How redundant copying can help explain the stability of cumulative culture"
2015
Göttinger Freilandtage at the German Primate Centre, Göttingen, Germany.
Tennie, van Leeuwen & Acerbi: “What is conformity? An individual based model approach”
ASAB Winter Conference, London, UK.
Tennie & Acerbi: “The neglected factor of cultural stabilization: Redundant copying”
2014
XXV International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Tennie, Hopper & van Schaik: "Ratcheting up the Zone of Latent Solutions: update and response to criticisms” (Part of a symposium on primate copying organized by Lydia Hopper and Claudio Tennie)
2013
Behavior 2013 (Joint IEC and ASAB meeting), Newcastle, United Kingdom.
Tennie: "Cumulative technology in great apes & symposium summary" (Part of a symposium on primate cognition organized by Julia Fischer and Claudio Tennie)
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham. School’s Research Event 2013.
Tennie: “Why Chimpanzees did not go to the moon”
Experimental Psychology Society Meeting in Lancaster, UK.
Tennie, Vonau, Hanus, Call & Tomasello: "Observational causal learning in chimpanzees"
13th Conference of the Gesellschaft für Primatologie (GfP) at the University of Hamburg, Germany.
Tennie: "Culture and its role in the distribution and shape of great ape behaviour"
2012
European Human Behaviour and Evolution (EHBE) annual meeting at Durham University, UK.
Tennie: "Culture explains the distribution – but not the form – of great ape behaviour"
XXIV International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Cancun, Mexico.
Tennie, Jensen & Call: "Helpful behaviour in chimpanzees?"
2011
Meeting of the German Psychological Society (DGP) – Developmental Section, Erfurt, Germany.
Tennie: “Menschenaffenkulturen und ihre Beziehung zur menschlichen Kultur“
2010
XXII International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Kyoto, Japan.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Ape traditions: using latent solution experiments to determine underlying learning mechanisms" (Part of a symposium on cumulative culture organized by Christine Caldwell and Claudio Tennie)
2008
XXII International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "An Improved study on action/gesture copying in chimpanzees"
2007
2nd Congress of the European Federation for Primatology (EFP), Prague, Czech Republic.
Tennie & Call: "Social learning of tool-making in great apes and human children: the loop study."
Symposium der Ethologischen Gesellschaft (EG e.V.), Grünau, Austria.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello. “An experimental study on social learning of complex problem solving: the floating peanut task”
2006
XXI International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Entebbe, Uganda.
Tennie, Hedwig, Call & Tomasello: "Nettle eating in mountain gorillas - revisited."
2005
Animal learning conference, St. Andrews, United Kingdom.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "The ghosts in the fruits."
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. Summer school.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "The battery of social learning tasks".
Teaching and supervision
2017 - ongoing
Lecture lead (winter semester)
Tennie: “The evolution of culture and cognition”
Guest lecturer (winter semester) for “Evolutionary Theory” lecture series, University of Tübingen, Germany
Tennie: 2 lectures as part of course
Seminar lead (summer semester)
Tennie: “How cultures evolve"
2017
Seminar
Tennie: “How to do a journalclub [Cognition of Tool Use]”
2016 - 2017
Final year module lead: “Cultural Evolution and Cognition” at the University of Birmingham, UK (20 credits module).
Guest lecture for Clinical Science Bachelor of Medical Science - Intercalated Degree Course at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Tennie: "The evolution of culture"
Guest lecture for “Evolutionary Theory” lecture series, University of Tübingen, Germany Tennie: "The evolution of culture"
Supervision of one MSc student for final thesis
2015 - 2016
Start of Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Zanna Clay in my research group (2015-2017)
MSc Module lead (together with Robin Thompson): "Transferable Skills" at the University of Birmingham, UK (10 credit module).
Successfully participated in “Foundation of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education” Module, as part of the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice
Guest lecture for interdisciplinary course for Masters and PhD Students in the Departments of Biology and History and Sociology: "Nature and Culture as False Dichotomy" at the University of Konstanz, Germany.
Tennie: "Ape culture vs. human culture"
Main supervisor for four third year students and co-supervision of two additional third year students.
Co-supervision of two MSc students.
2014 - 2015
MSc Module lead (together with Robin Thompson): "Transferable Skills" at the University of Birmingham, UK (10 credits module).
Guest lecture for Clinical Science Bachelor of Medical Science - Intercalated Degree Course at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Tennie: "The evolution of culture"
Guest lecture for students at Bristol Zoological Society, Bristol, UK.
Guest lecture for final year module by Sarah Beck on higher cognitive functions at the University of Birmingham. Tennie: “Great ape cultures”
Main supervisor for three third year student projects.
Main supervisor of two masters student projects.
2013 - ongoing
PhD supervision:
Eva Reindl (2013-2017)
Elisa Bandini (2014-2018)
Damien Neadle (2016-2020)
Alba Motes Rodrigo (2017-2021)
William Snyder (2018-2023)
Jordy Didier Orellana Figueroa (2018-ongoing)
Li Li (2019 - 2022)
2013
Leucorea, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany. Lecturer at seven day summer school Tier im Menschen – Mensch im Tier
Guest lecture for students at Bristol Zoological Society, Bristol, UK.
Second supervisor for one MSc project.
2012
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Co-teaching for the lecture series Origins of Human Cognition, Language, and Languages.
2010
FU Berlin. Visiting lecturer: "Animal Culture?" Animal Behaviour course by Prof. Constance Scharff
2009 & 2011
University of Magdeburg. Visiting lecturer: "Primate communication & observational learning". Course by Dr. Jochen Braun.
2004 - 2009
Supervision of research assistants, organization and coordination of several studies, and guiding tours at the WKPRC (as part of labcoordinator position).
2005 - 2007
Overseeing and organising research at the Tiergarten Nürnberg on dolphin cognition
(work performed by Alenka Hribar)
2003 - 2013
Co-supervision of diploma theses:
Kathrin Greve (2004-2005); Heinz Gretscher (2005-2006); Daniela Hedwig (2006-2007); Nadja Miosga (2009-2010); Claudia Menzel (2010-2011); Matthias Allritz (2010-2011); Victoria Walter (2010-2011); Victoria Vonau (2012-2013)
2002 - 2003
University of Leipzig: Lecturer for the undergraduate course “Evolutionäre Aspekte menschlichen Verhaltens” (~ “Evolution and Human Behaviour”). Co-taught with Tobias Grossmann.
2000 - 2001
University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Biology
Teaching Assistant for an undergraduate behavioural ecology courses
Outreach
2023
Biology teacher training at the museum of prehistory Blaubeuren (“URMU”), Blaubeuren, Germany.
Tennie: “Menschen und Menschenaffen in ihrer Kultur”
Since 2012
Outreach via a group blog and via twitter
2016
Engaging with Zoos to promote wild-type behaviour in captivity.
Speaker at Pint of Science event in Birmingham, UK.
Tennie: "The truth about chimps: do they really lend a helping hand?"
2015
Speaker at Café Scientifique event in Birmingham, UK.
Tennie: “Animal and human culture”
Speaker at “Skeptics in the Pub” event in Birmingham, UK.
Tennie: “The chimpanzee guide to competition and cooperation”
2014
Participated in interactive ‘Meet the Scientist’ activity day at ThinkTank Birmingham museum with an exhibit on Child Development.
Speaker at Café Scientifique event at Narziss und Goldmund Café in Halle, Germany.
Poster at ESRC Festival of Social Science Central Library of Birmingham, UK.
Reindl, Beck, Apperly, & Tennie: “The ability to spontaneously use simple tools: Humans and great apes compared”
British Science Festival 2014. Participated in interactive stage show “People vs Larry Chimp” as an invited witness – the show involved putting a (hypothetical) chimpanzee on trial for murder with the audience acting as jury. At the Barber Institute Lecture Theatre, Birmingham, UK.
2010
Public lecture series ("Cognition research") at the Zoological Museum Hamburg, Germany.
Tennie: "Gibt es einen Unterschied zwischen den Kulturen von Affen und Menschen?“ ["Are ape and human cultures different?”]
Public lecture series for a special exhibition ("Ancient Elephants") at the Regional Museum of Prehistory, Halle, Germany.
Tennie: "Kultur bei Menschenaffen - neue Befunde, Theorien und Implikationen“ ["Culture in apes – new findings, theories and implications”]
Media presence
In English
Podcasts and Blogs: EvoAnth; MentalFloss, UoB Podcast; The Dissenter; SciNews; The Archaeology News Network; Cognition & Culture Blog etc.
Newspapers and magazines, incl. online: The Guardian; DailyMail; Daily Mail Online; Discover Magazine; Heritage Daily; International Business Times UK; New Yorker; naked Science; New Scientist (here again); Scientific American - also here; Phys.org; IFLS; Los Angeles Times; TopNews; American Scientist; The Times; The Express; Yahoo News; Global Times (China) etc.
Radio/TV: PBS ("Human Spark" - hosted by Alan Alda); CBC Radio; BBC Radio Scotland; BBC World Service
In other languages
Radio: Deutschlandfunk - here again; NDR; SWR; MDR Figaro; Neckaralb; Radioeins ("die Profis")
Newspapers and magazines; incl. online: Archäologie Online; ABC; El Mundo; Le Scienze; Le Figaro; ZEIT Online; Die Welt; Hamburger Abendblatt; Koelner Stadtanzeiger; MDR; National Geographic; NZZ; Focus online; der Standard; Spektrum; VBio; NRC; de Volkskrant; Schwäbisches Tagblatt; Tagesspiegel; Asia News; Frankfurter Rundschau; Nature (Asia) etc.
TV: MDR (Echt Magazin), SWR Aktuell
Grants & Awards
2023
Funding via WoBoGeTo DFG project for six-month guest researcher visit (Ronald Planer) to collaborate with Claudio Tennie and Alexandros Karakostis
2022
Funding via the Tübingen AI Center for one Postdoc Research Fellow (2 years) to work on cumulative culture in AI (PIs: Charley Wu and Claudio Tennie)
2019
PI for DAAD PPP Australia grant awared for PhD student Li Li
(€6316)
2017 - 2022
PI for ERC Starting Grant - “STONECULT” project (€1,500,000)
2017 - 2019
PI for SNSF mobility fellowship with Fellow Dr. Sofia Forss (€65,000)
2016 - 2019
ESRC PhD studentship for Damien Neadle; with Claudio Tennie as lead supervisor (£60,356)
2015 - 2016
CoI for NERC Innovation Project Grant NE/M021300/1 "An Enclosure Design Tool to enable zoos to create integrated, wild-type enclosures for great apes" (£122,000)
2015 - 2017
PI for Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship "GESTRANSCULT" with fellow Dr. Zanna Clay (£221,000)
2013 - 2016
PI for ESRC Future Research Leader Grant ES/K008625/1 "Is cumulative culture restricted to modern humans?" (£241,000)
2013 - 2016
College of Life and Environmental Sciences (University of Birmingham) PhD studentship awarded to Eva Reindl; with Claudio Tennie as lead supervisor (£54,000). In 2016 Eva Reindl was awarded the Michael K. O'Rourke Award for the best PhD publication for the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham.
2013
Collaboration visit to Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago - covered by University of Birmingham Transatlantic Collaboration Fund (£900)
2012 - 2017
University of Birmingham Research Fellowship (open competition with 2% success rate; £301,000)
2012 - 2014
AAAS/Science Program for Excellence in Science recipient
2010
Klaus Tschira Award for achievements in public understanding of science (Biology)
2009 - 2011
Post-Doc grant from Max Planck Society
Editorial services
2021 - ongoing
Recommender (editor) for Peer Community In Registered Reports
2014 - 2019
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (Associate Editor). Resigned 2019 in protest due to journal's refusal to introduce Registered Reports format.
2013 - 2014
PLoS ONE
Grant reviewing services
BBSRC; ERC; French National Research Agency (ANR); Leakey Foundation
Manuscript reviewing services
Animal Behaviour; Animal Cognition; Aquatic Mammals; Behaviour; Behavioural Processes; Behavioral Sciences; Biology and Philosophy; Cerebral Cortex; Cognition; Cognitive Science; Current Anthropology; Current Biology; Developmental Psychology; Evolutionary Human Sciences; Evolution and Human Behavior; Folia Primatologica; Human Nature; Infant and Child Development; Journal of Comparative Psychology; Journal of Experimental Child Psychology; Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology; Mind and Language; Nature; Nature Communications; Nature Human Behaviour; Palgrave Communications; PeerJ; Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences; Psychological Science; PLOS ONE; PNAS; Proceedings of the Royal Society: B Series; Scientific Reports
Memberships
Cultural Evolution Society (CES)
Ethologische Gesellschaft e.V.
European Society for the Study of Human Evolution (ESHE)
Gesellschaft für Primatologie (GfP)
International Primatological Society (IPS - lifelong member)
PeerJ (Premium)