Simon K. Beader

background
Simon Bearder is a Professor of Anthropology and has recently completed a four year period as  Deputy Head of the School of Social Sciences and Law at Oxford Brookes University.  
He attended Hertford Grammar School (1957-64) and the
University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he read zoology, geology and botany.  He graduated in 1967 with a BSc Honours degree in zoology.  He then spent 10 years in South Africa, engaged in research on the ecology and behaviour of nocturnal mammals.  He gained MSc and PhD degrees for field and laboratory studies of bushbabies (galagos) at the University of the Witwatersrand, and later worked on feeding behaviour and communication in spotted hyaenas (Crucuta crocuta) for the Mammal Research Institute in Pretoria.  He subsequently conducted a two-year, radio tracking field study of lesser bushbabies in the northern Transvaal, together with R.D. Martin, followed by two years as a Research Fellow at London Zoo.

Since 1979, Simon has been teaching physical anthropology in Oxford, with particular emphasis on primatology and human evolution.  His main research interests are the identification and conservation of nocturnal primates.  He co-ordinates the Nocturnal Primate Research Group (NPRG), which links
colleagues who work on galagos and lorises.  Members of the group have helped to discover 6 previously unrecognised galagos.  Each species gives distinctive loud calls which provide a powerful means of distinguishing between species.
The group runs a Sound Analysis Laboratory and has an extensive library of wildlife sounds.

As a former Secretary of the Primate Society of Great Britain, and long standing Convenor of its Conservation Working Party, he has been involved with promoting public awareness of the plight of primates (including humans) and of tropical forests.  His work has taken him to Zimbabwe, Kenya, S.E.Brazil,
Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Gabon and Madagascar, where the devastating effects of human activities are readily
apparent.  The results of this work have been circulated through numerous scientific publications, articles in wildlife magazines, radio broadcasts and three television documentaries. Simon is a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group and the Taxon Advisory Group for prosimians.  He is Course Manager for a newly validated MSc in Primate Conservation starting in September 2000 at Oxford Brookes University.
 

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