Profile of Frans B. M. de Waal

Not often does a book highly cited by scientists also appear on a best-read list for United States Congress members. Yet primatologist Frans B. M. de Waal's book Chimpanzee Politics, cited more than 600 times since its publication in 1982, was also recommended by then-U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for freshman Representatives in 1994 (1). Embraced across many disciplines, the book detailed primate social structure and filled a gap in both the scientific literature and the public's imagination. With this book, de Waal was one of the first scientists to break long-standing scientific taboos and study animals as cognitive and emotional creatures rather than as mere learning machines.

Since that time, de Waal has become one of the most influential researchers of the social life of monkeys and apes. His six popular books (1–6) have been translated into over a dozen languages, and his research has spurred new work in animal conflict resolution and peacemaking. He was elected to the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in 1993 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004.

Now the C.H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department at Emory University (Atlanta, GA) and director of the Living Links Center at the Emory-affiliated Yerkes National Primate Research Center (Atlanta, GA), de Waal continues to reach a multidisciplinary audience with his research. In his Inaugural Article published in this issue of PNAS (7), he presents findings on how capuchin monkeys react to their reflections in mirrors. Because mirror self-recognition is correlated with the first signs of empathy in human children, this work relates to how primates develop varying capacities for emotional connections.