#  About 

 



   ![rachna](/sites/g/files/omnuum11926/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-06/rachna.jpg?itok=rfomjjvw) 

 

I am a psychologist, biological anthropologist, primatologist, and [incoming assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, where I will be accepting graduate students this cycle](https://psychology.berkeley.edu/graduate/admission/general-admission). I co-direct the [Ngogo Chimpanzee Project](http://ngogochimpanzeeproject.org/research/) in Kibale National Park, Uganda, a 31-year-ongoing study on the largest known group of chimpanzees in the world, which recently [fissioned](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz4944).

At Harvard, I am currently a Research Associate in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. I was previously a [Harvard Radcliffe Fellow](https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-rachna-reddy-fellow-presentation-virtual) (2025-2026) and a Mind Brain Behavior Postdoctoral Fellow in Human Evolutionary Biology and Psychology (2020-2022).

My research aims to uncover a biological basis for how and why social relationships shape human life. Through longitudinal studies of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, in the wild, I examine how social relationships contribute to learning, development, health and evolutionary fitness across the life course, with a current focus on the tumultuous life stage of [adolescence](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929322001190). Ngogo chimpanzees are the heart of my research program. I have also studied wild bonobos in [Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve](https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/kokolopori/people) in Democratic Republic of Congo. For certain questions I take broader cross-species approaches and work in sanctuary as well as wild contexts.

I received my BA with Distinction from Duke University, my PhD from the University of Michigan, completed postdoctoral training at Harvard and Duke, and was previously an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Utah.

My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, The National Geographic Society, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the Nacey-Maggioncalda Foundation, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the University of Utah, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Duke University and the Duke Lemur Center.



 

    ![img_7791](/sites/g/files/omnuum11926/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/rachnareddy/files/img_7791.jpg?itok=qqaJwuEX)