Our Team

Dr. Robert Seyfarth

Co-Chair, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Seyfarth is an expert on primate social behavior, communication, and cognition. In 1977, together with his wife and collaborator Dorothy Cheney, he began an 11-year field study of vervet monkeys in Kenya, which led to the publication of How Monkeys See the World. From 1992 through 2007 Dr. Seyfarth and Dr. Cheney studied baboons in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. In 2007, they published Baboon Metaphysics.

Dr. Carol Ward

Co-Chair, University of Missouri

Dr. Carol Ward is Curator’s Professor and Director of Graduate Education in the Integrative Anatomy Program at the University of Missouri. She is interested in the evolution of apes and early hominins. Her research focuses on fossils from East and South Africa. Dr. Ward takes a mechanical approach to the interpretation of the postcranial skeleton and uses these principles to reconstruct the behavior of extinct animals. Her overall research goal is to understand human origins.

Dr. Zeray Alemseged

University of Chicago

Dr. Alemseged is a paleoanthropologist and Donald N. Pritzker Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. His research interests include human evolution and the exploration of factors that shaped the evolution of humans and extinct ancestral species. Dr. Alemseged undertakes extensive fieldwork and employs cutting-edge imaging techniques to investigate the evolutionary process and mechanisms that led to the emergence of Homo sapiens. He explores both the biological and cultural transformations that occurred over the past 6 million years since humans diverged from the apes.

Dr. Brenda Bradley

The George Washington University

Dr. Bradley is a geneticist and molecular anthropologist whose work bridges behavioral ecology and evolutionary genomics. Her research interests include molecular anthropology, comparative primate genomics, molecular ecology, population genetics, sensory ecology, pigmentation, color vision, and the evolution of hair.

Dr. Craig Feibel

Rutgers University

Dr. Feibel is a geologist at Rutgers University, where he runs the Paleoenvironmental Research Laboratory. His research focuses on investigating the geological context for evolution in terrestrial ecosystems, particularly those related to hominid evolution. His primary research area is the Turkana Basin of Kenya, where he has worked for over thirty years in association with the National Museums of Kenya and the Turkana Basin Institute.

Dr. John G. Fleagle

State University of New York, Stony Brook

Dr. Fleagle is known for his expertise on the early evolution of monkeys, apes, and humans, and brings together a knowledge of primate behavior, morphology, and functional anatomy in addition to his extensive primatological and paleoanthropological work in Asia, Africa, and North and South America.

Dr. Kristen Hawkes

University of Utah

Dr. Hawkes is a distinguished professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah. A sociobiologist, her research and theoretical interests lie in evolutionary and behavioral ecology, and she is a leader in the study of contemporary hunter-gatherers and human life history evolution.

Dr. Richard G. Klein

Stanford University

Dr. Klein is a Professor of Anthropological Sciences. Dr. Klein’s scientific interests lie in the interrelationship of cultural, biological, and environmental change in human evolution, especially the reconstruction of the environment, ecology and human behavior from animal remains.

Dr. Steven Kuhn

University of Arizona

Dr. Kuhn is Professor and Co-Director of Graduate Studies in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. He is currently conducting collaborative archaeological fieldwork and laboratory projects investigating Paleolithic sites and assemblages in Turkey, Greece, and Tucson. His work focuses on Paleolithic archaeology and human evolution; social and ecological contexts for evolutionary change in hominid technologies.

Dr. Nina Jablonski

Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Jablonski is Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology at The Pennsylvania State University. A biological anthropologist and paleobiologist, she studies the evolution of adaptations to the environment in primates, including humans. Her paleoanthropological research concerns the evolutionary history of monkeys and currently includes an active field project in China. Her research on the evolution of human adaptations to the environment centers on the evolution of human skin and skin pigmentation and includes an active field project examining the relationship between skin pigmentation and vitamin D production.

Dr. Meave Leakey

National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi

Living in Kenya since 1965, Dr. Leakey’s research has focused on fossils recovered from long-term fieldwork in the Turkana basin and includes the evolution of monkeys, apes, carnivores, and mammalian fauna. She continues to find evidence of the very earliest hominins.

Dr. Daniel Lieberman

Harvard University

Dr. Lieberman is Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University and Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. Dr. Lieberman is recognized as a leading expert on morphology and is especially interested in when, how, and why early hominins first became bipeds, and then became so exceptional as long-distance endurance runners.

Dr. Martin N. Muller

University of New Mexico

Dr. Muller’s research combines behavioral ecology and reproductive endocrinology. He conducted the first studies of hormones and behavior in wild chimpanzees and, since 2004, has served as co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project. He has also done fieldwork with Hadza foragers and Datoga pastoralists in Tanzania. He is particularly interested in what comparisons between chimpanzee and human behavior and physiology can tell us about human evolution.

Dr. Thomas Plummer

Queens College, City University of New York

Dr. Plummer’s research focuses on reconstructing the behavior and ecology of extinct members of our biological family, the Hominidae. Dr. Plummer’s fieldwork focuses on investigating paleontological and archeological occurrences in late Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments on the Homa Peninsula, southwestern Kenya. He is also involved in investigating the paleoecology of a number of South and East African hominid localities, including Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

Dr. Joan Silk

Arizona State University

Dr. Silk’s research interests are wide-ranging and include biological anthropology, primate behavior, and evolutionary biology. She is especially interested in how natural selection shapes social evolution in primates. Her recent focus is on the behavioral and reproductive strategies of female bonnet macaques and baboons. She is a prolific writer, author of over 80 publications, and co-author of a current biological anthropology text.

Dr. Anne Stone

Arizona State University

Dr. Anne Stone is a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. Her specialization and main area of interest are anthropological genetics. Her current research focuses on population history and understanding how humans and great apes have adapted to their environments, including their disease and dietary environments.

Dr. Christian Tryon

University of Connecticut

Dr. Tryon specializes in the archaeology of human evolution. He is particularly interested in reconstructing ancient social and natural environmental contexts in which behavioral change occurred. Although trained as an archaeologist, his interests span multiple fields, including anthropology broadly but especially geology, history, and ecology.

Dr. Alexander (Sandy) Harcourt

Baldwin Fellowship Advisor, University of California, Davis

Dr. Harcourt is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Davis. After many years studying the behavior and ecology of gorillas, Dr. Harcourt’s research moved to the evolutionary biology of reproduction, and cooperation, and now his interests have turned to biogeography, including the biogeography of humans.

Sharal Camisa Smith

Executive Director, San Francisco, CA

Nyssa Cheruvattam

Grants Associate

H. Gregory

Program Officer, San Francisco, CA

Arielle Johnson

Education Director, San Francisco, CA

Meredith Johnson

Communications Director, San Francisco, CA

Niba Nirmal

Communications Coordinator, San Francisco, CA

Jennifer O’Reilly

Administrative Assistant, San Francisco, CA

Rachel Roberts

Director of Finance and Administration, San Francisco, CA

Brandon Upchurch

Senior Development Analyst, Portland, OR