Volker Sommer was born in 1954 in Holzhausen, northern Hesse. He has held a chair in evolutionary anthropology at University College London (UCL) since 1996 and has been UCL provost for international strategy since 2009. His research focuses on social and sexual behaviour of primates as well as cognition and rituals.

Studies of biology, chemistry, and theology in Göttingen, Marburg, and Berlin. 1985 PhD, 1990 habilitation in Göttingen. 1986 to 1988 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship, 1991 to 1996 Heisenberg fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Guest professorships at the Mahidol University Bangkok, the University of California in Davis, as well as long-term field studies on temple monkeys in India (since 1981), gibbons in the Thai rainforest (since 1989), and on chimpanzees in the mountain forest of Nigeria (since 1999). Member of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources), great ape expert group at the UN. Founder of the "Gashaka Primate Project", which combines biodiversity research with habitat conservation in West Africa. The committed nature conservationist is publicly known through numerous lectures, radio, and television broadcasts, articles in journals (GEO, FAZ, natur, kosmos, Die Zeit, Spiegel, Die Welt, Weltwoche, NZZ, bild der wissenschaft) as well as his provocative books and theses on Darwinian topics.
 

Publications (selection):

• "Nektar der Unsterblichkeit. Poetische Annäherung an Indien" (Stuttgart: Radius, 1983)
• "Yeti. Eine Erzählung" (Stuttgart: Radius, 1986)
• "Die Rose. Entfaltung eines Symbols" (Cologne: Diederichs, 1988; with Gerd Heinz-Mohr)
• "Die Affen. Unsere wilde Verwandtschaft" (Hamburg: GEO, 1989)
• "Wider die Natur? Homosexualität und Evolution" (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990)
• "Lob der Lüge. Täuschung und Selbstbetrug bei Tier und Mensch" (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1992)
• "Feste - Mythen - Rituale. Warum die Völker feiern" (Hamburg: GEO, 1992)
• "Heilige Egoisten. Die Soziobiologie indischer Tempelaffen" (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1996)
• "Biologie des Menschen" (Heidelberg: Spektrum der Wissenschaft, 1996; ed.)
• "Die Grossen Menschenaffen. Orang-Utans, Gorillas, Bonobos, Schimpansen" (Munich: BLV, 1998; with Karl Ammann)
• "Christian Vogel: Anthropologische Spuren. Zur Natur des Menschen." Stuttgart: Hirzel, 1999; ed.)
• "Von Menschen und anderen Tieren. Essays zur Evolutionsbiologie" (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 1999)
• "Das grüne All. Ein Poem aus dem Regenwald" (Stuttgart: Radius, 2002)
• "Homosexual Behaviour in Animals. An Evolutionary Perspective" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; ed., with Paul Vasey)
• "Darwinisch denken. Horizonte der Evolutionsbiologie" (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 2007)
• "Schimpansenland. Wildes Leben in Afrika" (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2008)
• "Menschenaffen wie wir. Portraits einer Verwandtschaft / Apes Like Us. Portraits of a Kinship” (Mannheim: EditionPanorama, 2010; with Jutta Hof)
• "Primates of Gashaka. Socioecology and Conservation in Nigeria's Biodiversity Hotspot" (New York: Springer, 2011; ed., with Caroline Ross)

Websites:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/v_sommer
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/gashaka