Dr. Dean Falk (1944-)
Dean Falk combines a career as a distinguished researcher with the authorship of a series of successful books aimed at the general reader. Her research, which focuses on paleoneurology, has helped reduce our considerable ignorance about the evolutionary history of the large and distinctively-shaped brain of modern humans. When, and in what order, did changes in brain size and shape take place? Her books have focused on topics ⎯such as the acquisition of language⎯that many of her peers are reluctant to speculate about, and she has not been afraid to tackle controversial debates about the nature of the earliest hominins and the interpretation of Homo floresiensis (aka the ‘Hobbit’). Was the absolute and relative brain size and its distinctive brain shape caused by the ‘normal’ process of island dwarfing, or was it the result of a growth pathology?
Falk, who is the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology and a Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University, was awarded her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1976. Under the influence of Leonard Radinsky and Harry Jerison, Falk further developed her interest in brain evolution. Her research came into prominence when she challenged Ralph Holloway’s interpretation of the endocranial morphology of the Taung juvenile, but her influence has reached far beyond that particular debate. Her interest in how CT imaging could be used to contribute to understanding brain evolution led to her long-standing and productive collaboration with Charles Hildebolt and others at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.
Falk has championed the cause of women scientists in general, and women in paleoanthropology in particular. She continues to be productive as a researcher and as an author.
Dean Falk Oral History Video
Oral History Transcript
The transcript below is free to read and download.