Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner (July 13, 1933 – June 5, 1995) was an Austrian-American zoologist who became well known for the primate research that she conducted in the United States.
[1] She and her family remained in Brazil for six years,[1] at which point Beatrix moved to the United States to attend school.
They met when they both attended a talk being given by Harry Harlow on his studies of contact comfort in infant rhesus macaque monkeys.
This method of teaching language to apes lacked ethological validity, which Gardner was able to bring to the table, thanks to her background training from working with Niko Tinbergen.
Due to the success of the project, Gardner continued to expand it by obtaining four infant chimpanzees named Moja, Pili, Tatu, and Dar.
[citation needed] Gardner wanted to begin the sign language training from younger than 10 months old, which was Washoe's age when she was first acquired.
Herbert Terrace, a cognitive scientist at Columbia University, attempted to replicate the success of Washoe's training with another chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky.
She received the University of Reno National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award.