| Honorific Prefix: | Her Highness |
| Louise, Princess of Merode | |
| Birth Date: | 21 March 1972 |
| Birth Place: | Nairobi, Kenya |
| Fields: | Paleontology |
| Alma Mater: | United World College of the Atlantic University of Bristol University College, London |
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| Thesis1 Year: | and |
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| Known For: | Youngest documented person to find hominoid fossil |
| Children: | Princess Seiyia de Merode Princess Alexia de Merode |
| Parents: | Richard Leakey Meave Epps |
| Relatives: | House of Merode (by marriage) |
Princess Louise de Merode (née Leakey, born 21 March 1972) is a Kenyan paleontologist and anthropologist. She conducts research and field work on human fossils in Eastern Africa.[1]
Louise Leakey was born in Nairobi, Kenya, to Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician Richard Leakey and British paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey in 1972, the same year that her paleoanthropologist grandfather, Louis Leakey, died. She first became actively involved in fossil discoveries in 1977, when at the age of five she became the youngest documented person to find a hominoid fossil.[2]
Leakey earned her International Baccalaureate from United World College of the Atlantic and a Bachelor of Science degree in geology and biology from the University of Bristol. She earned a PhD from University College, London[3] in 2001.
In 1993, Leakey joined her mother as a co-leader of paleontological expeditions in northern Kenya. The Koobi Fora research project has been the main program behind some of the most notable hominid fossil discoveries of the past two decades, the most recent being Kenyanthropus platyops.
Leakey has promoted an initiative to place digital models of fossil collections in a virtual laboratory, African Fossils, where models can be downloaded, 3D printed or cut in cardboard for reassembly.[4]
In 2003, Leakey married Prince Emmanuel de Merode, a Belgian primatologist. She is styled princesse de Merode by marriage. The couple have two daughters:[5]