Careers HEB MSc

Many graduates are successful in entering fully funded doctoral programmes based on their training and achievements on the programme. Our graduates also go on to work in the media (TV, radio, publishing), in NGOs (community development, nature conservation), government organisations (national statistics, health programmes), in zoos and museums (overseeing collections, co-ordination research), or become school teachers. Moreover, numerous alumni have become notable academics in their own right, teaching as permanent staff in universities across the globe.

Destinations of recent graduates:

• Advisor at The Behavioural Insights Team
• Senior Research Executive at Qa Research
• Research Advisor at Founders Pledge
• Researcher at the Polish Academy of Science
• Project Executive at Research Now PLC
• Policy Advisor at Department for Work and Pensions
• Research Officer at the Home Office
• Research Officer at the Office for National Statistics
• Co-Founder of Education Survey and Analysis Platform
• Assistant Scientist at the Environment Agency
• Assistant Commissioning Editor at the Future Science Group
• Senior Office Clerk at the House of Commons
• Research and Performance Analyst at Peabody

In addition, many of our students are successful in go onto funded PhD programmes. See below for our graduates with notable academic careers.

Notable MSc HEB alumni with subsequent academic careers (graduation year):

• Dr Rebecca Sear (1994) - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
• Dr William Harcourt-Smith (1997) - American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
• Dr Jamshid Tehrani (2000) - Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK
• Dr Matt Grove (2002) - Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, UK
• Dr Natasha Arora (2003) - Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Dr Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel (2003) - Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo, New York, USA
• Dr Kit Opie (2004) - Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Bristol, UK
• Dr Heidi Colleran (2005) - Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

Recent publications of MSc HEB theses research

• Sommer, Volker; Alison Denham, Katherine Little (2002). Post-conflict behaviour in wild Indian langur monkeys: Avoidance of opponents but rarely affinity. Animal Behaviour 63: 637–648
• Sommer, Volker; Peter Schauer & Diana Kyriazis (2006). A wild mixture of motivations: Same-sex mounting in Indian langur monkeys. Pp 238–272 in: Volker Sommer & Paul Vasey (eds). Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: Evolutionary Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Fowler, Andrew; Yianna Koutsioni & Volker Sommer (2007). Leaf-swallowing in Nigerian chimpanzees: Assumed evidence for self-medication. Primates 48: 73–76
• Schöning, Caspar; Darren Ellis, Andrew Fowler & Volker Sommer (2007). Army ant prey availability and consumption by chimpanzees at Gashaka (Nigeria). Journal of Zoology 271: 125–133
• Opie Kit & Camilla Power (2008). Grandmothering and female coalitions: a basis for matrilineal priority? Pp. 168–186 in: NJ Allen, H Callan, RIM Dunbar, W James (eds). Early Human Kinship: From Sex to Social Reproduction. Oxford: Blackwell
• Mace, Ruth & Heidi Colleran (2009). Kin influence on the decision to start using modern contraception: A longitudinal study from rural Gambia. American Journal of Human Biology 21: 472-477
• King, Andrew J.; Claire Narraway, Lindsay Hodgson, Aidan Weatherill, Volker Sommer & Seirian Sumner (2010). Performance of human groups in social foraging: The role of communication in consensus decision-making. Biology Letters 7: 237–240
• Howarth, Helena, Volker Sommer & Fiona Jordan (2010). Visual depictions of female genitalia differ depending on source. BMJ Medical Humanities 36: 75–79
• Perry George & Ruth Mace (2010). The lack of acceptance of evolutionary approaches to human behaviour. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 8: 105-125
• Koutsioni, Yianna & Volker Sommer (2011). The bush as pharmacy and supermarket. Plant use by human and non-human primates at Gashaka. Pp 135–230 (Ch. 05) in: Volker Sommer & Caroline Ross (eds), Primates of Gashaka. Socioecology and Conservation in Nigeria's Biodiversity Hotspot. New York: Springer
• Hughes, Nicola; Norm Rosen, Neil Gretsky & Volker Sommer (2011). Will the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee go extinct? Models derived from intake rates of ape sanctuaries. Pp 493–523 (Ch. 14): in Volker Sommer & Caroline Ross (eds), Primates of Gashaka. Socioecology and Conservation in Nigeria's Biodiversity Hotspot. New York: Springer
• Silva, Antonio S.; Virpi Lummaa, Ulrich Muller, Michel Raymond & Alexandra Alvergne (2012). Facial attractiveness and fertility in populations with low levels of modern birth control. Evolution and Human Behavior 33: 491–498
• Holland, Jo; Antonio S. Silva & Ruth Mace (2012). Lost letter measure of variation in altruistic behaviour in 20 neighbourhoods. PLoS ONE 7(8): e43294. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043294
• Kim A. Bard, Sophie Dunbar, Vanessa Maguire‐Herring, Yvette Veira, Kathryn G. Hayes & Kelly McDonald (2013). Gestures and social‐emotional communicative development in chimpanzee infants. American Journal of Primatology. doi: 10.1002/ajp.22189
• Villmoare, Brian; C. Dunmore, S. Kilpatrick, N. Oertelt & J. Fish (2014). Craniofacial modularity, character analysis, and the evolution of the mid-face in early African hominins. Journal of Human Evolution 77: 143–154. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.06.014
• Olsen, Katharina & Volker Sommer (2014). Biased hand-use in captive emperor tamarins (Saguinus imperator). Journal of Comparative Psychology 128: 172-180
• Tsegai, Zewdi; Tracey L. Kivell, T. Gross, D.H. Pahr, N.H. Nguyen, J.B. Smaers, Matt M. Skinner (2015). Trabecular bone structure correlated with hand posture and use in hominoids. PLoS ONE 8(11): e78781. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078781
• Goldstone, Lucas Guével; Volker Sommer, Niina Nurmi, Colleen Stephens & Barbara Fruth (2016). Food begging in wild bonobos (Pan paniscus): assessing relationship quality? Primates 57: 367–376. doi: 10.1007/s10329-016-0522-6
• Sommer, Volker; Adriana Lowe, Gonçalo Jesus, Nienke Alberts, Yaelle Bouquet, David M. Inglis, Megan Peterson, Eelco van Riel, James Thompson, Caroline Ross (2016). Antelope predation by Nigerian forest baboons: Ecological and behavioural correlates. Folia Primatologica 87: 67–90. doi: 10.1159/00044583
• Brindle, Matilda & Christopher Opie (2016). Postcopulatory sexual selection influences baculum evolution in primates and carnivores. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 283. Published 14Dec16. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1736
• Gilbert, James; Caroline Uggla & Ruth Mace (2016). Knowing your neighbourhood: local ecology and personal experience predict neighbourhood perceptions in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Royal Society Open Science. Published 07Dec16. doi: 10.1098/rsos.160468
• Bentzen-Bilkvist, Dana; Andrea Bamberg Migliano & Lucio Vinicius (2016). Behavioural phenotypes and the structure of human cognition. Evolutionary Biology. Published Nov16. doi: 10.1007/s11692-016-9399-y
• Almeida-Warren, Katarina; Volker Sommer, Alex K. Piel, Alejandra Pascual-Garrido (2017). Raw material procurement for termite fishing tools by wild chimpanzees in the Issa valley, western Tanzania. American Journal of Physical Anthropology