Short Bio

Carvalho is a primatologist, palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist. She was a Professor of Paleoanthropology at Oxford University until 2023 and in 2024 she moved to a full time position as Director of Paleoanthropology & Primatology at Gorongosa National Park.  A pioneer of the field of Primate Archaeology, Carvalho has first studying stone tool use by wild chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea, West Africa, while simultaneously carrying out archaeological research in Lake Turkana, Koobi Fora area, Kenya, East Africa, with a focus on the earliest origins of technology. She is the head of the Paleo-Primate Project Gorongosa, where an international team of researchers from 10 countries and 4 continents is carrying out an unprecedented interdisciplinary approach to understanding primate origins and adaptations in the extreme South of the Eastern African Rift System (EARS). Carvalho currently directs the excavations ongoing at the new Miocene sites inside Gorongosa National Park, and coordinates the archaeological and speleological surveys ongoing at open air sites as well as in the cave system in the area. Her work within the holistic Paleo-Primate Project, supervising current graduate research, includes exciting novel approaches to study human evolution, such as the ‘Bones of Predation Project (neo-taphonomy)’, ‘Landscapes of Fear’, ‘Evolution of Bipedalism and Predatory Patterns’, ‘Object Manipulation by Chacma Baboons’, just to name a few. Carvalho is also the founder and co-director of the Gorongosa Interdisciplinary Field School in Human Evolution. 
In January 2021 she was elected Vice-President of the International Primatological Society for Ethics, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. 
Please contact susana.carvalho@gorongosa.net if you are seeking opportunities for supervision, current or future projects, or have any questions.