For as long as she can remember, Dr. Zarin Machanda wanted to work with animals. “From the time I was a child, I really wanted to be an astronaut veterinarian, which is not a job,” she laughs, “but I had watched a documentary about sending chimpanzees to space. And when I was five years old, I just assumed that there were chimps in space, and I thought I’d go and take care of them.” It’s a funny anecdote—although any job involving space travel sounds awesome—but Machanda explains that her early desire to be a veterinarian shaped her academic studies and field work, while also creating some fascinating projects for her to explore. Machanda is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, with a research focus on the social relationships of wild chimpanzees and how they’ve evolved over time. We trace through her education history, which includes a PhD from Harvard University on the evolution of male and female relationships in wild chimpanzees. “No one knew a lot about it before I started,” Machanda says, “which I thought was puzzling because male and female bonds are interesting and important in so many human cultures, and chimpanzees are our closest living relatives.” Her research spanned almost 18 months in the field in Uganda, specifically including work at the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, at which she is now the
director of long-term research. “I worked with Richard Wrangham, who is one of the world’s leading primatologists and has a field site in southwestern Uganda that he started in 1987. It was about the time that I graduated and finished my PhD that he approached some of his former students about running the site.” Machanda notes how inheriting this field site from Wrangham has shaped her research at Tufts. “I archive and maintain all of this data from the project,” she explains, “and do various research initiatives. Right now, one set is focused on aging and another is focused on leadership.” The research put both Machanda—and Tufts students who are interested in the research—in contact with the Project’s full-time Ugandan staff, who collect the data every day. It’s all very impressive; I admit that my only knowledge of chimps comes from Jane Goodall. But for other Tufts students, this is a direct connection to really exciting research. “Because of the nature of the data and that we have years and years of it in my laboratory, it’s a great way to get undergraduate students involved,” Machanda says. She also explains that plenty of Tufts undergraduate students have traveled to Uganda to work on the field site. Beyond this work, Machanda is very passionate about the conservation of chimpanzees. “The work that I’m involved in is through the Kasiisi Project,
which is over 20 years old and works with 16 public elementary or primary schools near Uganda’s Kibale National Park,” she tells me. She’s a board member for the project, which focuses on providing these schools with educational support and opportunities while also teaching students about caring for the country’s natural resources. “It is a conservation project, but it manifests itself into various educational programming,” Machanda says. She talks about one of her favorite projects, which involves teaching girls how to make reusable sanitary pads for their periods. The goal is to keep girls in school while also demonstrating environmental responsibility. “My favorite part about this project is that now we teach the boys how to make them,” she says. It’s easy to acknowledge how diverse Machanda’s commitments are, but all of her work connects her to some of the most interdisciplinary and passionate Tufts students. “For me, a lot of my focus with advising and teaching is science and biology, but my research also brings me closer to students who are interested in community health and public policy. It’s a great way of introducing them to some science and show[ing] them how it impacts them.” —CHRIS PANELLA ’21
DR. ZARIN MACHANDA ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
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