# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/dian-fossey
# Generated: 2026-08-31T15:53:24.701Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/dian-fossey"
name: "Dian Fossey"
slug: "dian-fossey"
description: "She lived alone in the Rwandan mountain forests for 20 years studying gorillas up close, fought poachers with a ferocity that made enemies, and was found murdered in her cabin in 1985 — the killer never conclusively identified."
tagline: "American zoologist, gorilla researcher (1932–1985)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Dian_Fossey_October_1968.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "female"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1932-01-16"
deathDate: "1985-12-26"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           60.89
  momentum:             0.5715756951596292
  historical:           25.692828
  currentAttention:     2.198368058306266
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  75
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
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    slug: "scientists"
  - name: "Academic"
    slug: "academic"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
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    slug: "united-states"
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  - name: "20th Century"
    slug: "20th-century"
platforms:
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    handle:    "nm0287638"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Dian Fossey"
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    title: "Dian Fossey"
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    title: "Dian Fossey"
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    title: "Dian Fossey"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Dian Fossey arrived in Rwanda's mountain forests in 1966, sent by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey to study gorillas in the wild as part of a trio of women he recruited to work with great apes. She built the Karisoke Research Center and spent two decades observing gorilla groups daily, documenting their behavior and intelligence in ways that shifted how the world saw them. Her work was uncompromising: she supported conservation hard, stood against poaching and tourism intrusions, and made powerful adversaries in the process. In 1983 she published Gorillas in the Mist, her account of the science and the years in the forest. On December 26, 1985, following the killing of a gorilla and mounting tensions, she was murdered in her remote cabin. Her research assistant was convicted in absentia, but no consensus exists on who killed her. The population trend she worked to reverse began to climb.