Staff profile

Research

I am a PhD student researching individual variation in empathic tendencies of chimpanzees and bonobos. I am interested in the emotional responding of our closest living relatives and how they manage and resolve conflicts, in partiular with a comparative approach. My project with Dr Zanna Clay is funded through a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

I have worked with captive, wild, and sanctuary-living populations of primates. My current research is focused on great apes but I have interests and some experience in studying human populations.

I completed my Bachelor's in Psychology and Master's in Evolution and Human Behaviour at the University of Kent.

• Empathy
• Great ape social behaviour
• Conflict management
• Comparative psychology

Chapter in book

• Brooker, J. S., Webb, C. E., & Clay, Z. (2022). Primate empathy: A flexible and multi-componential phenomenon. In M. J. Beran, & B. L. Schwartz (Eds.), Primate Cognitive Studies (505-531). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108955836.020

Journal Article

• van Leeuwen, E. J., Staes, N., Brooker, J. S., Kordon, S., Nolte, S., Clay, Z., …Stevens, J. M. (2023). Group-specific expressions of co-feeding tolerance in bonobos and chimpanzees preclude dichotomous species generalizations. iScience, 26(12), Article 108528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.108528
• Brooker, J. S., Webb, C. E., & Clay, Z. (2020). Fellatio among male sanctuary-living chimpanzees during a period of social tension. Behaviour, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568539x-bja10053
• Brooker, J. S. (2016). An investigation of the auditory perception of western lowland gorillas in an enrichment study. Zoo Biology, 35(5), 398-408. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21312