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Curriculum Vitae

Claudio Tennie

www.claudiotennie.de
(0049) 160-3637254
Deutscher Platz 6
Leipzig, 04013 Germany

Place and date of birth: 24 March 1976, Bad Pyrmont, Germany
Nationality: German

   

 Education

 
 2009 Göttingen University, Germany
Ph.D. in Biology, with magna cum laude:
"Human culture versus great ape traditions: Mechanisms of observational learning in human children and great apes"
Supervised by Prof. Michael Tomasello and Dr. Josep Call
Examined by Prof. Julia Fischer and Prof. Michael Waldmann
 2005 Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Participation and presentation at CEU summer school
"Cultural Learning, Imitation, and Articraft Understanding: A Comparative Perspective"
 2003 University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Diploma thesis in Biology (final mark equivalent to an A)
 1999 - 2002 University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Courses in behavioural ecology, social psychology, evolutionary psychology, ecology and biometrics
 1998 - 1999 University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Second and third year courses in ecology, ethology, biometrics and philosophy of science
 1996 - 1998 Philipps University, Marburg, Germany
Study of biology until in-between exam (“Vordiplom”, mark equivalent to an A)

 Work experience

 
 2009 - current Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Postdoctoral research fellow
 2006 - current Running studies on chimpanzees in Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Uganda (4 trips, altogether 8 months) – plus field project in western Uganda in 2006
 2004 - 2009 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Ph.D.-student & zoo-labcoordinator at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre
Several studies performed on all genera of great apes
 2003 - 2004 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Research Assistant
 2002 - 2003 University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Diploma thesis on observational learning in all genera of great apes
(studies performed at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre)

 2001

Summer field assistant for six weeks for a nightingale communication project at the Research Station Petite Camargue Alsacienne, France.

 2000 - 2001

University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
Student assistant (6-10 hours per week) for 12 months in the Faculty of Biology

 Publications

 
  See "Publications" tab above

 Invited talks

 
2011
"The Nature of Culture Symposium“ organized by ROCEEH ("The role of culture in early expansions of humans" – project funded by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences).  
Tennie, Braun & McPherron: “Cumulative culture – cognitive and social prerequisites and possible material outcomes“  
 
Seminar Series by the School of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Tennie: “A latent solutions approach may explain great ape cultures in the wild”

 2010

Public lecture series ("Cognition research") at the Zoological Museum Hamburg, Germany.
Tennie: "Gibt es einen Unterschied zwischen den Kulturen von Affen und Menschen?“ ["Are ape and human cultures different?”]
 
Public lecture series for a special exhibition ("Ancient Elephants") at the Regional Museum of Prehistory, Halle, Germany.
Tennie: "Kultur bei Menschenaffen - neue Befunde, Theorien und Implikationen“ ["Culture in apes – new findings, theories and implications”]
 
“Anthropology and Ethology” Workshop. Lower Saxonian Department of Preservation of Ancient Monuments, Hannover, Germany.
Tennie: "An ape cognition perspective on early artefacts"
 
Anthropological Institute & Museum, University of Zürich, Switzerland.
Tennie: “The zone of latent solutions hypothesis”
 
Annual gathering of the Scottish Primate Research Group at The Burn in Glensk, Scotland.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: “Zones of latent solutions”
 2009 Cooperative Human Robot Interaction Systems (CHRIS) workshop, Leipzig, Germany.
Tennie: “An introduction into social learning”

Reputation management workshop, Arhus, Denmark.
Tennie: "Reputation in apes?"
 2008
Evolution, Development and Intentional Control of Imitation (EDICI) workshop, Vienna, Austria.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: “Cumulative culture: task difficulty and action copying”
 2006
Biology department, University of Marburg, Germany.
Tennie: “Culture in apes?”

Primatology department, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Tennie, Hedwig, Call & Tomasello: “Nettle eating revisited”

 Talks

 
 2011
Meeting of the German Psychological Society (DGP) – Developmental Section, Erfurt, Germany.
Tennie: “Menschenaffenkulturen und ihre Beziehung zur menschlichen Kultur“
 2010
XXII International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Kyoto, Japan.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Ape traditions: using latent solution experiments to determine underlying learning mechanisms" (Part of a symposium on cumulative culture organized by Christine Caldwell and Claudio Tennie)
 2008 XXII International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "An Improved study on action/gesture copying in chimpanzees"
 2007 2nd Congress of the European Federation for Primatology (EFP), Prague, Czech Republic.
Tennie & Call: "Social learning of tool-making in great apes and human children: the loop study."

Symposium der Ethologischen Gesellschaft (EG e.V.), Grünau, Austria.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello. “An experimental study on social learning of complex problem solving: the floating peanut task”
 2006 XXI International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Entebbe, Uganda.
Tennie, Hedwig, Call & Tomasello: "Nettle eating in mountain gorillas - revisited."
 2005 Animal learning conference, St. Andrews, United Kingdom.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "The ghosts in the fruits."

Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. Summer school.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "The battery of social learning tasks".

 Posters

 
 2011
2nd Transfer-of-Knowledge conference (CompCog), Prague, Czech Republic.
Menzel, Fowler, Tennie & Call: "Leaf swallowing behaviour in captive great apes"
 2009 European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, St. Andrews, United Kingdom.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Great ape traditions & zones of latent solutions"
 2008 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. Evaluation.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Do gorillas acquire nettle feeding techniques via program-level-imitation (PLI)?"
 2004 XX International Primatological Society (IPS) Congress, Torino, Italy.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Imitation vs. emulation in great apes"
 2003 Gesellschaft für Primatologie (GfP), Leipzig, Germany.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Do great apes benefit from a demonstrator in a simple social learning task?"

Second International Symposium on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom.
Tennie, Call & Tomasello: "Push or pull revisited: How do great apes perform?"

Teaching experience

 
 2010 FU Berlin. Visiting lecturer: "Animal Culture?" Animal Behaviour course by Prof. Constance Scharff
 2009 & 2011 University of Magdeburg. Visiting lecturer: "Primate communication & observational learning". Course by Dr. Jochen Braun.
 2004 - 2009 Supervision of research assistants, organization and coordination of several studies, and guiding tours at the WKPRC (as part of labcoordinator position).
 2005 - 2007 Overseeing and organising research at the Tiergarten Nürnberg on dolphin cognition
(work performed by Alenka Hribar)
 2003 - ongoing
Co-supervision of diploma theses:

Kathrin Greve (2004-2005; now research assistant at MPI EVA)
Heinz Gretscher (2005-2006; now Ph.D.-student at MPI EVA)
Daniela Hedwig (2006-2007; now Ph.D.-student at MPI EVA)
Nadja Miosga (2009; now research assistant at MPI EVA)
Claudia Menzel (2010-2011; now research assistant at MPI EVA)
Matthias Allritz (2010-2011; now research assistant at MPI EVA)
Victoria Walter (2010-2011)
 2002 - 2003 University of Leipzig: Teaching of undergraduate course “Evolutionäre Aspekte menschlichen Verhaltens” (~ “Evolution and Human Behaviour”). Co-taught with Tobias Grossmann.
 2000 - 2001
University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Biology
Assisted in behavioural ecology courses (as part of student assistant job)

 1998

Together with four fellow biology students: Development of a pedagogical concept for an ecological school trip to the Alps. We then excecuted this concept with a school class (secondary school) from Hannover. The trip took place from the 26th of June 1998 to the 4th of July 1998.

 1996 - 1998

Private lessons in mathematics and chemistry to fellow students

 Responsibilities

 
 2009 - 2011 Organiser of speakers for regular fortnightly labmeetings
 2004 - 2009 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Half-time labcoordinator at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre (WKPRC).
Responsibilities include, but were not restricted to: supervision of studies, organisation and management of the WKPRC & communication with zoo management.
 2004 - 2008 Supervising and overseeing enrichment activities for the great apes housed at the WKPRC.
 2003 - 2005 Organiser of speakers for regular fortnightly labmeetings
 2003 - 2004 Organiser of the Animal Cognition Reading Group ("ACRG")

 Grants & Awards

 
 2010 Klaus Tschira award for achievements in public understanding of science (Biology)  
 2009 - 2011 Post-Doc grant from Max Planck Society  

 Reviewer

   
 
Animal Behaviour
Animal Cognition
Aquatic Mammals
Cognitive Science
Current Anthropology
Folia Primatologica
Journal of Comparative Psychology
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
PLoS ONE
Proceedings of the Royal Society: B Series
 

 Memberships

   
  International Primatological Society
Gesellschaft für Primatologie
 

 

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