Vice Director
Paul Garber
Department of Anthropology and Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana 61874, Illinois USA
International Centre of Biodiversity and Primate Conservation, Dali University, Dali 671003, Yunnan, China
Current affiliations
Dr. Paul A. Garber is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA. Dr. Garber is the former Executive Editor of the American Journal of Primatology (2008-2017) and is the President of the American Society of Primatologists. In 2024, Dr. Garber received the Changlong Award for International Scholars from the Zoological Society of China in recognition of outstanding contributions to promoting primate research and young researcher training in China.
Dr. Garber has conducted primate field research across eight countries in Central and South America, as well as China, and has published over 330 journal articles and book chapters (including 12 edited books) on the behavior, ecology, cognition, and conservation of nonhuman primates. This includes several recent papers on the impending extinction crisis faced by the world’s primates. Dr. Garber also is the co-organizer of two recent workshops on scientific activism and environmental justice.
Currently, Dr. Garber is collaborating with primatologists in Brazil, China, Nepal, and India on ICBPC projects focusing on human-nonhuman primate conflict resulting from crop raiding, the effects of global wildlife trade and trafficking on primate conservation, dietary adaptations and the primate microbiome, cognition and decision-making, and the evolutionary genetics of body mass reduction in callitrichine primates.
Recent publications
Govindharaj V, Victor MBBH, Garber PA, and Parthasarathy TN (2025) Into the Fire: problem-solving and pyrocognitive behavior of Temple dwelling Bonnet macaques, Macaca radiata, in India. American Journal of Primatology.
Yang Y, Li C, Fang YH, et al. (2025) Effect of primate protection on threatened and endemic terrestrial vertebrates, plants, and ecosystem services. Conservation Biology. doi: 10.1111/cobi.70019
Ru YK, Zhao JL, Garber PA, Li WB, and Pan HJ (2025) Factors affecting the diet and activity budget of wild Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana). American Journal of Primatology. doi: 10.1002/ajp.70026
Zhong XK, Huang X, Zhu CY, Wang YX, Chapman CA, Garber PA, Chen Y, and Fan PF (2025) Saving the world’s rarest primate species with solid science. Science Advances.
Cheng S, Li BW, Garber PA, Xia DP, and Li JH (2025) Wild Tibetan macaques use a route-based mental map to navigate in large-scale space. American Journal of Primatology 87(1). doi: 10.1002/ajp.23720
Garber PA, Estrada A, Shanee S, et al. (2024) Global wildlife trade and trafficking contribute to the world's nonhuman primate conservation crisis. Frontiers in Conservation Science 5. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2024.1400613
Zhao XM, Garber PA, and Li M (2024) Climate and anthropogenic activities threaten two langur species irrespective of their range size. Diversity and Distributions e13841. doi: 10.1111/ddi.13841
Garber PA, Dolins FL, and Lappan S (2024) Scientific Activism to Protect the World’s Primates and their Environments from Extinction: Introduction to the Special Issue. American Journal of Primatology 86(3). doi: 10.1002/ajp.23601
Ma HG, Wang ZD, Han P, Fan PL, Chapman CA, Garber PA, and Fan PF (2024) Small apes adjust rhythms to facilitate song coordination. Current Biology 34(5): 935–945. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.071
Li WB, Teng W, Zhang MY, et al. (2023) Human activity and climate change accelerate the extinction risk to non-human primates in China. Global Change Biology 30(1). doi: 10.1111/gcb.17114
Qi XG, Wu JW, Zhao L, et al. (2023) Adaptations to a cold climate promoted social evolution in Asian colobine primates. Science 380(6648): eabl8621. doi: 0.1126/science.abl8621