Jane Goodall had been dreaming living and writing about animals in Africa since she was a child. After high school she couldn’t afford going to collage, so she acquired a secretary certification. In 1957, a friend of her, whom knew about her dream, invited her to her family’s farm in Kenya, Africa. She took her friend’s advice, and arranged an appointment with the archaeologist and paleontologist, Louis S. B. Leakey. So after two weeks she arrived, she met Louis wit the reason to discuss animals. Louis liked her energy and curiosity from the first time, so he employed Jane to work as a secretary and assistant at the Coryndon Museum. Later, Louis was looking for researchers to study primates, with the aim to have a better understanding of early hominids’ behavior and evolution. Eventually, he hired Jane to study chimpanzees in Tanzania.

In 1958, Jane went back to London to study primate anatomy and behavior with Osman Hill and John Napier. Jane’s years in Gombe Stream National Park, in Tanzania started in 1960. The British authority was concerned about the idea, that a 26 years old woman would go to the forest alone, so insisted to have an accompanist. Eventually, Jane went to Gombe to study chimpanzees with her mother. At the same time, Louis sent two other women to Africa to study primate behavior. Dian Fossey went to study gorillas and Birute Galdikas to observe orangutans. They were often called “Leakey’s angels” (or “The Trimates”).

After two years at Gombe, in 1962 Louis arranged Jane to be enrolled to the University of Cambridge. So, Goodall went to the Newnham College to study ethology. She is one of the few people who was allowed to have PhD studies without a bachelor degree. At first, Jane received a cold welcome because of her anthropomorphic approach of chimpanzee studying. At that time, it was an unconventional idea and people opposed giving names to the subject with the reason that it is not scientific. Jane argued that chimpanzees do have personalities thus it should be acceptable.

In 1965, based on her observations in Gombe Stream National Park, Goodall wrote her thesis with the title: Behavior of Free-living Chimpanzees and got her PhD certifications in ethology the following year.