Hobaiter is based at the University of St Andrews but spends considerable amounts of time on field research in Uganda.
This requires filming gestures for detailed analysis and, prior to her work, this had been undertaken primarily in zoos or wildlife parks.
[3] Her studies have gradually developed a catalogue of around 80 gestures that form a language common to several groups of wild apes, measured in terms of 'apparently satisfactory outcomes' (ASO) after assessing many records.
[3] In August 2020, Hobaiter was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Infinite Monkey Cage to discuss how understanding of chimpanzees has changed since the 1960s.
After graduating she worked in commercial project management for a short time but then obtained funding for the doctoral research that marked the start of her academic career.