Louise Nicol Leakey
Louise Leakey is an award-winning paleoanthropologist whose three decades of field research in Kenya's Turkana Basin have produced landmark discoveries that continue to reshape our understanding of human evolution. The daughter of Meave Leakey and granddaughter of Louis and Mary Leakey, she carries forward one of science's most celebrated legacies, while firmly establishing herself as a leading figure in her own right.
Numerous transformative discoveries have been made by her team over the decades including new species found at Lake Turkana extended human fossil diversity back 3.5 million years. Recent publications include the upper skeleton and dentition of Homo habilis, and the hand of Paranthropus boisei published in Nature in 2025. A hominin trackway was reported in Science in 2024 as well several yet unpublished finds in recent years. These discoveries deepen our understanding of Plio-Pleistocene human origins in East Africa.
A National Geographic Explorer at Large since 2008, Leakey leads the Koobi Fora Research Project, a long-term field program in the Turkana Basin. She holds a Research Professorship in Anthropology at Stony Brook University, serves as a Research Associate at the National Museum of Kenya, and sits on the board of the Turkana Basin Institute. She earned her PhD in Biology from University College London in 2001. Beyond fieldwork, Leakey is a pioneer in digital paleontology and public engagement. She founded AfricanFossils.org, a virtual laboratory offering global access to 3D fossil models from the Turkana Basin, and co-developed FossilFinder.org, a citizen science platform using UAV imagery for crowd-sourced fossil mapping. A TED speaker and sought-after international lecturer, she also brings science directly to Kenyan schoolchildren through LeakeyJourneys.org. Her commitment to making human origins accessible drives her continued work at the frontier of paleoanthropological discovery.
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led—and it was a special treat to hear about their experiences firsthand from Louise.
Thank you for such a wonderful and singular evening. I had done a little reading about the Leakeys, and it all came back to me: the excitement I felt as a little boy, sprawled on the floor, reading about them and their discoveries, in the pages of National Geographic.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, your expertise and your family’s history and contributions to science. Your presentation was truly inspiring.
It was the greatest privilege and pleasure to attend the presentation about the work ongoing in East Turkana. It was transporting in the best and finest sense.
The students and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In my Prehistory classes, I discuss East African paleoanthropology — including your family's work and discoveries like Dear Boy and other KNM fossils (plus the famous Dalmatians!) — but hearing directly from you brings the research to life in a way that lectures cannot.