Here is Chris talking about his thesis

A few weeks ago Christopher Young has been awarded a PhD Degree from the Georg August University of Gottingen, Germany, for a thesis entitled “Cooperation and competition in wild male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in Morocco”. Chris has been a key member of the Barbary Macaque Project since it’s start, having worked in Morocco as a research assistant first and then coming back to the field for his PhD. Chris has already published various papers on prestigious journals and has more to come in the next few months. He will be staying in Gottingen for the next few months, to run more analyses on male behaviour and mating tactics, in collaboration with Prof. Julia Ostner and Dr. Oliver Schülke (two long-term key members of our team).

It’s a tradition in Germany that PhD students, who successfully defend their thesis, have to wear a hat representing their main interests.  As you can see from the pictures below, Chris’s main interests are (not necessarily in this order) football, ‘drinks’ and sexual swellings in Barbary macaque females!

Congratulations Dr. Young!!

“Chris’ research interests”: football, beer and macaques’ sexual swelling (the red, ‘volcanic’-shape bit, popping our from the back of the hat, is supposed to be the bottom of a female macaque in full swelling during the mating season…)

Well done Chris!!!