Keriann McGoogan

Keriann McGoogan (PhD) is an author and trained primatologist. She received her PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Toronto and her Master’s from the University of Calgary. In pursuit of primates, she has lived and worked in Belize and Madagascar. While studying howler monkeys in Belize, she spent her days in the humid, tropical forests and kayaked gorgeous (but crocodile-filled) rivers. McGoogan lived in Madagascar for nearly two years studying Critically Endangered lemurs. She documented the conservation threats to these primates, which are the most endangered group of animals in the world, only found in Madagascar.

McGoogan’s memoir Chasing Lemurs: My Journey Into the Heart of Madagascar (Prometheus Books, 2020), chronicled her first visit to Madagascar, and she considers it a love letter to the amazing island nation. Her second book, Sisters of the Jungle: The Trailblazing Women Who Shaped the Study of Wild Primates (Douglas & McInture, 2025) delves into the history of primate field studies and the many women who broke boundaries and shaped this science, including Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birutė Galdikas, and more that the world deserves to know. In 2027, she will publish a young adult novel about a young girl whose father goes missing in Madagascar while on a research expedition, with Guernica Editions. McGoogan’s writing has also appeared in The Walrus, Orion, Outpost Magazine, the Toronto Star, and as part of the anthology Bad Artist: Creating in a Productivity Obsessed World (Touchwood Editions, 2024). In 2021, McGoogan was selected as a Writers’ Trust Rising Star.