Manon Schweinfurth grew up in Germany and studied Biology with a minor in Psychology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. During her studies, she participated in various research projects on ants, baboons, geese, and ravens, exploring how and why animals live together peacefully. For her PhD, she moved to Bern, Switzerland, to study the evolution of social behaviours in rats. She was then awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study chimpanzees in Chimfunshi, Zambia. Today, she is a Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Associate Professor) in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience and leads an independent research group, the Cooperation Lab.

Together with members of her Cooperation Lab, Manon Schweinfurth investigates the evolutionary and psychological origins of cooperation. In particular, she is interested in why and how individuals decide to help others instead of being selfish. To investigate these questions, she mostly studies chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) besides humans (Homo sapiens). Most of her studies are based on predictions derived from game theoretical models that she tests experimentally in both lab and field settings. Please visit her lab website for more information and ways to join her Cooperation Lab.