Biography
Dr. Brian Hare is one of the world's leading experts on the evolution of cognition — and the scientific mind behind Dognition. A Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, he is the founder and director of the Duke Canine Cognition Center, the first lab of its kind dedicated to understanding how dogs think.
Hare earned his B.A. in Anthropology and Psychology, summa cum laude, from Emory University in 1998, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2004. Before joining Duke, he founded the Hominoid Psychology Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. His research traces the origins of intelligence across species — studying not only domestic dogs, but also chimpanzees, bonobos, wolves, and human children — and has taken him from Siberia to the Congo Basin.
In 2004, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation named Hare a recipient of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, Germany's most prestigious prize for scientists under 40. In 2007, Smithsonian magazine named him one of the top 37 U.S. scientists under 36.
A New York Times bestselling author and the husband and research partner of Vanessa Woods, Hare co-founded Dognition to put the tools of canine cognition science directly into the hands of dog owners everywhere — turning everyday households into a global research community.
Research
Brian Hare studies the evolution of cognition: how thinking abilities arise, and why different species — including our own — came to think the way they do. His central insight is that the same cognitive skills that make dogs such extraordinary companions, particularly their ability to read and cooperate with humans, evolved through a process he calls "survival of the friendliest" — selection for friendliness rather than aggression.
His publications on dog cognition are among the most heavily cited papers on dog behavior and intelligence. Over a career spanning more than 100 scientific papers, he has published in the world's leading journals, including Science, Nature, PNAS, Current Biology, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The Dognition assessment is a direct application of this research. It measures a dog's distinct cognitive dimensions — empathy, communication, cunning, memory, and reasoning — translating laboratory methods into games any owner can play at home. This citizen-science approach was scientifically validated in PLOS ONE in 2015, demonstrating that data collected by dog owners themselves can meet the standards of formal research.
Books & Publications
Dr. Hare is the co-author, with Vanessa Woods, of three books on the science of dogs and the evolution of cognition:
- Puppy Kindergarten: The New Science of Raising a Great Dog (2024) — Drawing on the Duke Puppy Kindergarten, a groundbreaking study of how puppies develop into great dogs.
- Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity (2020) — A New York Times bestseller arguing that friendliness, not strength, has been the secret to success in evolution.
- The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think (2013) — The New York Times bestseller that introduced the world to the new science of dog cognition and inspired Dognition.
His peer-reviewed work appears in Science, Nature, PNAS, Current Biology, Nature Neuroscience, PLOS Biology, Animal Behaviour, Animal Cognition, and the Journal of Comparative Psychology, among others.
Press & Media
Dr. Hare's work has been featured across major national and international media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Time, The Washington Post, Scientific American, and The Atlantic.
He has appeared on television programs including 60 Minutes, NOVA, and Nature, hosted the National Geographic WILD series Is Your Dog a Genius?, and is featured alongside Vanessa Woods in the 2024 Netflix documentary Inside the Mind of a Dog, narrated by Rob Lowe. He is also a frequent guest on radio programs including the BBC and NPR.