Jill D. Pruetz

Ames, Iowa

At one of the nation’s leading research institutions, one has to do something pretty remarkable to stand out from the crowd. When ISU anthropologist Jill Pruetz reported from her research site in Senegal that savanna chimpanzees were fashioning tools to hunt other vertebrates in 2007, her research indeed stood out. And it made quite the impact.

The groundbreaking observation was named second among Wired News’ “Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs” of the year and earned Pruetz distinction as one of National Geographic’s 11 Emerging Explorers. Her findings were featured in National Geographic magazine, on PBS’s “Nova” television series, and in a variety of international media outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Pruetz and her team were the first individuals to successfully habituate chimpanzees living in a savanna habitat. In addition to her report on tool use, Pruetz also published the first reports of chimpanzees using caves and soaking in pools of water.

Pruetz, who joined the ISU faculty as assistant professor of anthropology in 2001, earned ISU’s Margaret Ellen White Graduate Faculty Award in 2007, and the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Master Teachers Award in 2004.