Mariko Hasegawa (scientist)

Mariko Hiraiwa Hasegawa (Japanese: 長谷川眞理子, born 1952) is a zoologist and anthropologist who studies behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and physical anthropology.[1] Hasegawa is president of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai) in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.[2] She is "among the rare Japanese women primatologists to have gained international recognition."[3]

Her mother Satsue Mito collected field data on Japanese macaque troupes beginning in the 1950s, ultimately documenting four decades worth of behavior. Mito documented the cultural transmission of sweet-potato-washing within a group of wild macaques.[3] During Hasegawa's doctoral studies at the University of Tokyo, she also studied Japanese macaques, as well as Tanzanian chimpanzees.[1] She won a British Council Scholarship and went to Cambridge for zoology.[1] She was on the faculty of Senshu University from 1990 to 2000, at which time she joined the faculty of Waseda University.[1]