Faculty
A student should choose a graduate program based on topical coverage, student support, and faculty quality. Faculty quality is measured on the basis of publications, citations to their work, and success at securing external grants to support research. Based on these measures, the last National Research Council (NRC) survey rated the IDPAS first among anthropology doctoral programs in the United States. By these measures, therefore, our faculty are the best in the nation.
Faculty in the IDPAS are elected, and to be elected, a faculty member must be active in research and graduate education.
Research strengths of the IDPAS include:
- Human evolution and paleoanthropology. The IDPAS's excellent reputation as a center for the study of human evolution originated in important interpretations of hominid locomotion and systematics that were published in the 1980s and early 1990s. Today, the IDPAS retains its international stature in studies of primate and human evolution, including a number of active field projects. Paleolithic archaeology complements this focus on human evolution.
- Southwest Asian and African Archaeology. We have a strong group of archaeologists focusing on early farming societies in southwest Asia and east Africa, and on the complex societies and empires of the ancient Near East.
- Primate behavior. Our primatologists study a variety of Old World monkeys, apes and lemurs.
The IDPAS faculty, sorted by subfield, are:
Archaeology
Cultural Anthropology
Physical Anthropology: Behavior
Physical Anthropology: Morphology
- Brigitte Demes
- John G. Fleagle *
- Frederick E. Grine *
- Meave Leakey
- Stephanie A. Maiolino *
- Lawrence Martin *
- Carrie Mongle *
- Christopher Percival *
- James B. Rossie *
- Gabrielle Russo *
- Alan H. Turner *
- Natasha S. Vitek *
Other Disciplines
- Liliana M. Dávalos * (phylogenetics and molecular evolution)
- Marine Frouin * (luminescence dating, geochronology, chronostratigraphy)
- Gregory Henkes * (stable isotope geochemistry, paleoclimatology, biogeochemistry)
- Heather Lynch * (quantitative ecology, geospatial modeling, remote sensing)
- Troy Rasbury * (geochronology, stable isotopes)
- Jeroen Smaers * (brain evolution, phylogenetic comparative methodology)
- Tara Smiley * (paleobiology, biogeography, stable isotope ecology)
- Krishna Veeramah * (population and evolutionary genetics, comparative genomics, aDNA)
* available to serve as primary advisor to incoming IDPAS students
The IDPAS honors the memory of Drs William Jungers, Isaiah Nengo, and Richard Leakey.