Professor Dr. Ani Permana

Biography

Ani Permana is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Warwick investigating the evolutionary precursors of human language, using wild orangutans as a model species. His work examines how communication, cognition, and ecological context interact to shape the vocal behaviors of great apes. Over the past years, he has conducted extensive fieldwork across four sites in Sumatra, leading a large-scale series of predator-model experiments to study alarm-calling and the context-dependent vocalizations of orangutans. The data he has collected forms the foundation for the world’s comparative database of orangutan calls, designed to map the structure, flexibility, and potential referential meaning of their vocal repertoire. His research aims to illuminate the evolution of language-like communication and its emergence in our evolutionary past.

Research Interests