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She was a calm powerful influence. And she never waivered in her purpose to protect the animals to which she committed her life.

When I interviewed Dame Jane Goodall last year, she displayed remarkable serenity, even as she emphasized that a great extinction crisis was threatening our planet.

Over a slightly blurry video call, I could see her toy monkey, Mr H, behind her.

This companion was given to her nearly 30 years ago by a close companion. Dr Goodall, who was in her tenth decade when we spoke, was still travelling the world with Mr H at her side.

Researchers I've consulted with this evening, whose work Dr Goodall motivated, or who were simply affected by her passion, are in disbelief at her demise aged 91.

Dr Goodall had such an impact because "she sacrificed doing what she loved - being with her adored apes - to constantly journey the world and spread her dedication with everyone she met."

Revolutionary Findings

In the long duration that Jane Goodall monitored and analyzed chimpanzees, she radically altered our understanding of our nearest animal relatives.

Fundamental to her innovative discoveries were her inquisitiveness and ability - methodically - to observe.

It was during her time in the forest preserve at Gombe, in Tanzania, when she took time to watch a male chimpanzee who was hunting for sustenance.

The chimpanzee took a twig, bent and stripped it of its leaves, then he poked it into a termite's nest.

He then used that modified branch to extract the prey into his jaws.

That discovery - in 1960 - disputed the belief that only humanity created and utilized tools.

Breaking Barriers

Even as she changed our understanding of the natural world, Dr Goodall confronted skepticism and sexism.

She was not conventionally schooled as a researcher. And, in the 1960s, that was unusual.

Her work in Gombe later revealed that primates also create tight kinship ties - and even that they conduct battles over habitat.

But her technique – interacting so intimately with the animals she studied, naming them and even referring to them as "my friends" - made her unpopular with the male-dominated scientific establishment.

She had no formal scientific training. But she explained to me that her supervisor and mentor, Professor Louis Leakey, saw the value in her informality.

"He sought somebody whose perspective wasn't messed up by the narrow viewpoint of science to creatures," she said.

Lasting Legacy

Now, the academic world is responding to the passing of a great scientist.

Jane Goodall ultimately shifted her emphasis from her chimpanzees to promoting awareness about preserving the environment.

When she communicated with me, she was supporting a tree-planting and environmental rehabilitation mission that her namesake organization was conducting in Uganda.

"We still have a window of time to reduce climate change and wildlife decline," she said at the time. "But it's a chance that's closing."

One of the multiple experts Dr Goodall motivated commented: "Jane would be the primary figure to tell us that what the world demands right now is not grief over her absence, but to get to work.

"We all have a lot to be getting on with to guarantee that we are not the final cohort to coexist with wild chimpanzees."

Dr Goodall was described as "an remarkable expert who motivated individuals to see the wildlife in a new way".

She was powerful and it's profoundly surprising news, because she radically altered how we perceive other animals and how we view ourselves - she challenged anthropocentric views.