Rachel L. Kendal

Rachel Kendal is a Professor of Anthropology at Durham University in the UK. She completed a BSc in Behavioural Science at Nottingham University in 1998, then went on to receive my Ph.D. in Zoology from Cambridge University in 2003. Following a career break, she began a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship in 2006, based in the Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution at St. Andrews University. She continued this fellowship at Durham University in the Department of Anthropology before becoming an Assistant Professor in 2012, Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in 2014, Associate Professor (Reader) in 2017, and Professor in 2020.

Dr. Kendal is an interdisciplinary researcher with overlapping interests in cultural evolution, animal behavior, and primatology. Her focus is on cultural transmission, specifically social learning and behavioral innovation in a range of species from fish to monkeys to humans with a view to understanding the evolution of human culture.