The Center for Human Evolutionary Studies (CHES) at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, constitutes one of the world's leading research, teaching and student training programes in the evolution of human behavior. Our strengths lie in our multidisciplinary approach to this study, with CHES researchers working in several branches of paleoanthropology, in the study of non-human primates, as well as modern humans.

CHES was established in December, 1996, as part of Rutgers University’s Strategic Planning Implementation Process. Based in the Department of Anthropology, SAS-NB, CHES is the research and field training arm of the department’s undergraduate and graduate programs in Evolutionary Anthropology. The center’s primary mission is the discovery, teaching, and public dissemination of knowledge on the origin, evolution, and biological and ecological bases of human behavior.

CHES was established with generous financial support from Rutgers’ central administration. The University Vice President for Academic Affairs allocated to the center $750,000 of the Albert Fellows Bequest to Rutgers University on January 1, 1997. The funds were designated as a five-year challenge grant to an endowment for CHES. The University Vice President for Academic Affairs acknowledged in a letter dated May 2, 2001, that CHES had met this first challenge on the merits of private donations from a number of individuals, particularly a bequest of $750,000 from Mr. Nicholas G. Rutgers, III, in October, 2000. In the same letter, the Vice President allocated to CHES an additional $250,000 from the Fellows Bequest as a three-year challenge, all but $6,000 of which was met by the time of the writing of the center’s last report in June, 2003. That shortfall had been erased within the three-year deadline, and by the writing of this report has been exceeded by over $200,000 (see below).

Since the founding of the center, CHES faculty members and their students have been awarded $8,515,330 in external competitive and private grants for the operation of our ongoing research and training projects.

CHES also relies on the generosity of individual donors to supplement this competitive funding. Contributors have the option to donate to the CHES program of their choice, or to the CHES endowment.

If you are interested in making a donation, please contact CHES Director Robert Blumenschine (phone: +1 (732) 932-6746, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

Our 2007 financial report contains further information about CHES activities.