Derry Taylor

Derry Taylor is a post-doctoral researcher in the Ape Social Mind Lab at the ISC CNRS, Lyon. His current focus is on the structure and organization of tool-use behavior in Western Chimpanzees within the broader context of the Evolution of Brain Connectivity Project, which aims to establish the connection between brain structure and function in hominoids. Previously, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Neuchatel for the NCCR Evolving Language, a multi-disciplinary Swiss research project combining insights and expertise from biology, psychology, philosophy, computer science, and engineering, to better understand the past, present, and future of language. During his time in the NCCR, he developed a novel theoretical framework for social cognition research, which he tested using an innovative experimental approach with wild chimpanzees in Budongo Forest Uganda, as well as with captive apes at Basel Zoo using eye-tracking technology. He earned his PhD in 2021 from the University of Portsmouth, where he worked on chimpanzee vocal ontogeny from a bioacoustic and behavioral perspective. In addition to his mainstream academic work, Derry (in collaboration with others), has developed a new platform, a free-format online journal, which aims to provide a space for the insights and expertise of local field staff to be shared, with the aim of helping to make primatology a more socially and epistemically inclusive field (www.perspectivescollectivejournal.com).