Over the past months, you may have noticed everyone on your virtual calls getting a bit….well…..shaggy. Have you ever stopped to wonder – why do we have hair? Why is there so much variation? What is its role? Is there any relationship between the hair of a lemur at a zoo and the hair on your head? And are there aspects about our hair that are uniquely human?

Presented by The Leakey Foundation’s Evolution Exchange (formerly Young Professionals Group)

About the speakers:

Tina Lasisi is a biological anthropologist and PhD Candidate and part of the Jablonski Human Evolution and Diversity Lab and the Shriver Anthropological Genomics Lab at Penn State University. Her research focuses on the evolution of human hair variation.

Elizabeth Tapanes is an evolutionary biologist and PhD Candidate at The George Washington University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology where she is part of the Primate Genomics Lab. Her research focuses on the evolution of hair in non-human primates.

The Leakey Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to increase scientific knowledge, education, and public understanding of human origins, evolution, behavior, and survival.