Student Spotlight: Natalie Robinson, PhD Candidate in Biological Anthropology
In December 2025, the Leakey Foundation recognized Natalie Robinson as one of its research grant recipients, supporting her work on primate ecology, reproduction, and environmental change. As part of a cohort of 30 scientists, including 17 PhD candidates, Natalie represents a new generation of scholars advancing research on evolution, behavior, and survival.
Natalie is a doctoral student at the School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers University, where she works under the mentorship of Erin Vogel in the field of biological anthropology, with a focus on non-human primates. Her research examines how environmental conditions shape reproductive function in wild orangutans, integrating physiology, ecology, and conservation science.
Her current project is based at a long-term research site in Indonesian Borneo, the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station. There, she investigates how rainforest ecology, nutrition, and energetics influence female reproductive biology. By analyzing hormone levels from non-invasive urine samples and combining these data with behavioral observations and environmental monitoring, Natalie takes a comprehensive approach to understanding how fluctuating food availability and ecological stress affect reproductive cycles.
This work is especially important given the biological constraints of orangutans. Females have the slowest reproductive rate of any mammal, typically giving birth only once every 6 to 9 years. In environments where fruit availability is unpredictable, often due to natural variation or human-driven disturbances such as fires and logging, females may delay or suppress reproduction. Natalie’s research aims to clarify how these ecological pressures shape reproductive outcomes and what this means for the long-term survival of this critically endangered species.
Natalie’s academic path shows a sustained commitment to both research and conservation. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology from Boston University in 2018, graduating magna cum laude with Honors. As an undergraduate, she conducted research on orangutan nutrition, focusing on the sugar content of foods consumed in the wild. She then spent a year in Indonesia working as a research assistant in Gunung Palung National Park, where she contributed to long-term field studies and led an independent project on orangutan intestinal parasites.
From 2019 to 2023, Natalie served as Program and Development Coordinator for the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program. This role deepened her engagement with community-based conservation and reinforced her interest in linking scientific research with on-the-ground environmental efforts. She began her doctoral studies at Rutgers in 2023 and continues to build on this foundation through her current research.
Receiving support from the Leakey Foundation marks a significant milestone in her doctoral training. The grant enables an extended 12-month fieldwork period in Indonesia and supports collaborative research efforts, including training opportunities for local undergraduate students. It also reflects strong recognition of the scientific value and broader impact of her work at an early stage in her career.
“It is a great honor to receive a grant from the Leakey Foundation. The Foundation has a long history of supporting transformative research in human origins, and being selected as a grantee feels like a meaningful vote of confidence in my research and my path as a scientist. I will soon depart for 12 months of fieldwork, which would not have been possible without the support of the Leakey Foundation. This grant also enables me to financially support Indonesian undergraduate students to join me at Tuanan and gain technical expertise in all field and lab methods, while concurrently collecting data for their own undergraduate theses” Natalie said.
Natalie’s research sits at the intersection of primate energetics, nutrition, and reproduction. More broadly, it contributes to our understanding of evolutionary trade-offs that shape health and fertility across species, including humans. By studying how reproductive systems respond to environmental variability in one of our closest living relatives, her work offers insight into both primate biology and human evolutionary history.
Her trajectory, from undergraduate research to international fieldwork and now doctoral-level inquiry, illustrates the kind of rigorous, interdisciplinary, and globally engaged scholarship that defines the School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers. Natalie encourages fellow graduate students to start early and seek feedback throughout the grant application process. She also highlights the value of GradFund, noting that taking advantage of available resources and building preliminary data can significantly strengthen competitive funding applications.
We congratulate Natalie on this well-deserved recognition and wish her a productive and successful time in the field.