Evelina Daniela Rodrigues

Evelina Daniela Rodrigues is a Research Fellow at ISPA - University Institute of Psychological, Social and Life Sciences, serving as a Collaborator Member of the Social Development Team. Her academic work centers on comparative analyses of communication systems across human and non-human primates within institutional research frameworks.

Her primary research explores gestural communication mechanisms, with specialized focus on social development trajectories and cognitive processes. Key investigation areas include hierarchical interaction dynamics, social bond formation, cultural transmission through social learning, object manipulation behaviors, tool-use evolution, and theoretical frameworks of mind attribution. This multidisciplinary approach integrates primatology with developmental psychology to examine evolutionary continuities in communicative behavior.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a concentrated research trajectory examining context-dependent primate communication, particularly arrival-departure rituals in chimpanzee communities and intentionality assessment in gestural exchanges. Her systematic review work establishes critical connections between primate gesture systems and language evolution pathways, while cross-species infant-chimpanzee comparisons highlight phylogenetic continuities in communicative development. This body of work demonstrates consistent methodological rigor in operationalizing observational data within evolutionary cognitive frameworks.

As an active contributor to the Social Development Team at ISPA, Dr. Rodrigues maintains research collaborations with leading primatologists including Catherine Hobaiter and Tetsuro Matsuzawa, utilizing field sites such as the Bossou chimpanzee community in Guinea for naturalistic behavioral observation.