SBU Doctoral Student Wins Leakey Grant To Study Kenya’s Coastal Primates

A Stony Brook University doctoral student was awarded a significant grant from The Leakey Foundationto study how primates have adapted to living in coastal Kenya.

Alex Chege, a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionand an associate of the Turkana Basin Institute, secured the coveted Dissertation Fieldwork Grant. This award is designated primarily to help Chege purchase GPS collars for his research, enabling him to remotely track female vervet monkeys(Chlorocebus pygerythrus)on Kiwayu Island, located in Kenya's Lamu Archipelago.

Chege said receiving this grant is "very encouraging and very validating for [his] research at this stage especially."

"TBI is very proud of Alex winning this grant," said Dino Martins, the director of the Turkana Basin Institute. "Understanding modern primate behavior and foraging in challenging environments can help us understand how vervet monkeys make use of different food resources, and offer insights into how primates in the past have navigated these landscapes and survived by exploiting marine creatures for food."

This recent grant builds on previous support Chege received for pilot research, including the Safina Center Junior Fellowshipand the Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellowship, which funded his trips to the field in 2022 and 2024.

"It's super refreshing as well to hear about similar research from other perspectives" outside of his usual circles," Chege said, offering him insights into how his research could be improved.

Chege's PhD journey focuses on primate adaptations to coastal habitats, exploring how vervet monkeys on Kiwayu Island use marine resources like crabs and seaweed. While some of his initial interests were dietary adaptations, his study evolved under the support from his advisor Catherine Markham, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Anthropology, and the late world-renowned paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakeyas a mentor in the early stages.

"The Leakey Foundation is proud to support early-career researchers like Alex," said H. Gregory, program officer at The Leakey Foundation. "Alex joins a community of scholars dedicated to advancing knowledge of human origins, evolution, behavior, and survival. We look forward to seeing the results of his dissertation project and to his contributions to the broader scientific and public understanding of our evolutionary history."

Chege's research focus today is more on the primates' spatial ecology -understanding how they use different areas of the landscape. "This research is especially fascinating because scientists have rarely studied how the dynamic tides of coastal environments influence where and how primates use their habitats," he said.

This research holds important implications, as understanding how non-tool-using primates behaviorally adapt to coastal life can shed light on how early humans may have similarly thrived in these environments, even without extensive tool use.

Chege's work also contributes to conservation, as many coastal primate populations are poorly studied and face threats from development and agricultural expansion.

The fieldwork was initially a daunting experience. Prior to his passing, Leakey had suggested studying primates living along the coast "could provide relevant insights into how early humans survived in these environments," Chege recalled. He added that "Leakey believed in this project so deeply" that he (through TBI) funded his first expedition to the island in 2020 to find a camp, build local partnerships, and locate the monkeys without knowing where to even start.

A challenge in starting a primatology project, he explained, is the necessity to "habituat[e] these animals. They have to get used to you as a researcher [and] used to your presence, following them for long periods of time". Alongside a long-term research assistant, the search for monkeys had them following hints like rustling in trees or leftover food.

His fieldwork has since become far more organized. He and his research assistant now have a good idea of where the four to five monkey families range on the island. They can spend hours with the groups that are now "more habituated to my presence as a researcher," collecting "detailed behavioral data on feeding preferences and movement across the landscape " using a tablet and GPS. His daily experiences are still filled with adventure.

"Definitely the wanderlust hasn't changed," Chege laughs, "but it's much more structured at this stage."