Roger Fouts is a professor of psychology at Central Washington University and Co-Director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. He has a been a part of Project Washoe since 1967. Washoe was the very first nonhuman animal to acquire a human language, American Sign Language for the Deaf (ASL). The project now focuses on the signing of its five sign language using chimpanzees who live together as a social group: Washoe, Moja, Tatu, Dar and Loulis. Just as humans do, the chimpanzees use the signs of ASL in their interactions with humans and with each other, to comment on their environment, to make requests, answer questions and describe activities and objects. Loulis acquired his signs from his adoptive mother Washoe and the other chimpanzees, becoming the first chimpanzee to acquire a human language from chimpanzees thus demonstrating the ability of the chimpanzee to culturally transmit a language across generations.

In 1981 Roger and Deborah Fouts founded Friends of Washoe a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization dedicated to the welfare of chimpanzees and our other fellow animals. In 1992 they founded the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) at Central Washington University. The CHCI is dedicated humane research and to the education of students and public alike in this regard. Recent research at the CHCI has focused on the private signing of the chimpanzees, imaginary play and signing, chimpanzee to chimpanzee conversations, conversation repair, representational drawing, and the symbolic representation of spatial relations with ASL signs. The Foutses are beginning a new conservation effort with the chimpanzees and gorillas living in the Ngotto Forest in the Central African Republic.

The Foutses are very active in their efforts to improve the living conditions and treatment of chimpanzees in captivity by developing and promoting humane care techniques and programs. In addition, they were active in efforts to protect the wild chimpanzee in Africa. The Foutses played a role in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife officially raising of chimpanzees in Africa from "Threatened" to "Endangered" species status and are signatory contributors to The Great Ape Project. They are active in legal efforts to grant apes legal status and in efforts to end the exploitation of apes used in entertainment.

PUBLICATIONS
Roger Fouts has author or co-authored 89 publications in scientific journals and books. Roger Fouts' book "Next of Kin" received the "Best 100 Books of 1997 Award" from both the Los Angeles Times and Publisher's Weekly.