12 Facts About Brigitte Senut

Brigitte Senut is a French paleoprimatologist and paleoanthropologist and a professor at the National Museum of Natural History, Paris.

Brigitte Senut is a specialist in the evolution of great apes and humans.

Brigitte Senut earned her master's degree in geology at the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University of Paris in 1975, and specialized in vertebrate and human paleontology, obtaining a doctorate in 1976 and defended her doctoral dissertation in 1978.

Brigitte Senut was interested in the function-phylogeny link in her thesis entitled Contribution a l'etude de l'humerus et de ses articulations chez les Hominides du Plio-Pleistocene.

In 1987, Brigitte Senut obtained her post doctoral habilitation degree to direct research at the National Museum of Natural History, France, under the direction of anthropologist Yves Coppens, with her thesis entitled Le coude des primates hominoides: aspects morphologiques, fonctionnels, taxonomiques et evolutifs.

Brigitte Senut participated in research on Lucy with the French contingent studying it.

Brigitte Senut collaborated with Christine Tardieu on these research projects.

Brigitte Senut has been a professor in the Department of Earth History at the National Museum of Natural History, France, since 1986.

Brigitte Senut has initiated and led several international cooperation projects in Africa, including sites in Uganda, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Angola and Botswana.

Brigitte Senut joined forces with the British researcher Martin Pickford, with whom she has made several major discoveries.

Brigitte Senut participated in many discoveries of fossil great apes in Africa: Otavipithecus in Namibia, Ugandapithecus and Kogolepithecus in Uganda, the oldest great ape found in South Africa, and in 2011 an exceptionally well preserved skull of Proconsul major.

Brigitte Senut helped establish a local community museum at Kipsaraman, Kenya.