City University of New York

Core NYCEP faculty at the City University of New York are based in the Physical Anthropology section of the doctoral program in Anthropology at The Graduate Center, with a strong emphasis on evolutionary approaches to understanding human and nonhuman primate biology. All doctoral students in Physical Anthropology at CUNY participate in NYCEP. CUNY faculty advise students and conduct research in paleoanthropology, paleoprimatology, human and primate population genetics, primate behavior and nutritional ecology, hominin behavior and paleoecology, comparative and functional morphology, bioarchaeology, systematics, geometric morphometrics, forensic and skeletal biology, and conservation biology.

Physical anthropology at CUNY covers a wide range of topics, with a strong emphasis on evolutionary approaches to understanding human and nonhuman primate biology. Current research involves: comparative morphology, scientific visualization and 3D morphometrics, paleontology, biogeography, and systematics of humans and other primates; primate ecology and its relationships to both social behavior and to conservation problems; the biology of modern humans; skeletal growth and development, osteology, and bone biology; craniofacial development and comparative anatomy; and forensic anthropology.

The doctoral program in physical anthropology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York is itself a consortium system. Each of the core faculty is based at one of the CUNY system's senior colleges (see individual college Anthropology Department pages at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Lehman College, and Queens College).

Core Faculty


Andrea Baden

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: molecular ecology, conservation genetics, social behavior, lemurs, Madagascar


Stephen Chester

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: evolutionary morphology; primate origins; mammalian evolution and response to climate change


Shahrina Chowdhury

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: primate behavior and ecology


Victoria Dominguez

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Lehman College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Skeletal Biology, Bone Histology and Microarchitecture, Bone Quality, Biomechanics, and Forensic Anthropology


Christopher Gilbert

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Primate paleontology, Geometric morphometrics, Ecomorphology, Systematics, Phylogenetics


William Harcourt-Smith

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Lehman College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Paleoanthropology, Human Evolution, Hominin postcranial morphology, Functional Anatomy, Primate locomotion, Hominoid paleoecology, Geometric morphometrics, Skeletal variation


Jeffrey Laitman

Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Research interests: Comparative anatomy, development and evolution of the mammalian aerodigestive tract (upper respiratory, upper digestive, vocal) and contiguous areas of the cranial base.


Felicia Madimenos

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: female reproductive ecology, energetics, life history theory, skeletal health , modern human biology, market integration and health


Kate Pechenkina

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Paleopathology, human diet and health in early China, stable isotopes, oral health


Thomas Plummer

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Pliocene and Pleistocene hominin behavior and paleoecology, the adaptive significance of Early Stone Age lithic technology, hominin and mammalian paleontology, ecomorphology, human osteology


Ryan Raaum

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Lehman College & CUNY Graduate Center

Research interests: Population genetics, Bioinformatics, Human evolution, Statistical genetics


Christopher Robinson

Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

Bronx Community College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Plio-Pleistocene hominin evolution, 3D cranial morphometrics of fossil hominins and extant hominoids, giraffid evolution


Jessica Rothman

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Primate ecology and behavior, nutrition, evolutionary ecology, Old World Monkeys, Apes, Africa


Michael Steiper

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Genetics, DNA, Phylogenetics, Population genetics, Primates, Hominoids, Malaria, Molecular clocks


Larissa Swedell

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: social behavior, behavioral ecology, reproductive strategies, evolution of social organization, human social evolution, conservation, baboons

Resource Faculty and Postdocs


Tim Bromage

Professor, Department of Biomaterials

New York University College of Dentistry

Research interests: Hard tissue biology, organismal life history, chronobiology, human evolution, metabolic ecology


Zachary Calamari

Assistant Professor, Department of Natural Sciences

CUNY Baruch College

Research interests: Ontogeny of shape, evolution of disparity, geometric morphometrics, transcriptomics


Eric Delson

Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology

Lehman College & CUNY Graduate Center

Research interests: Paleoanthropology, Primate Paleontology, Primatology, Evolutionary Biology


Katerina Harvati

Professor and Director of Paleoanthropology

University of Tübingen

Research interests: hominin evolution, Neanderthals, cranial morphology, geometric morphometrics


Michael Hickerson

Associate Professor, Department of Biology

City College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Comparative Phylogeography, Approximate Bayesian Computation, Population Genetics


David Lahti

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Vocal learning, relaxed selection and trait loss, brood parasitism and coevolution, bird egg color, cultural evolution, human social evolution, ethics and philosophy of biology


Ross MacPhee

Curator & Professor, Mammalogy/Vertebrate Zoology

Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History

Research interests: paleobiogeography, extinction, and cranial developmental morphology


Xijun Ni

Research Associate, Division of Vertebrate Paleontology

American Museum of Natural History

Research interests: vertebrate paleontology, evolutionary history of early mammals and early primates


Michael Novacek

Senior Vice President and Provost of Science, Curator & Professor, Division of Paleontology

Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History

Research interests: mammalian evolution, vertebrate paleontology in Mongolia


Herman Pontzer

Associate Professor, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology

Duke University

Research interests: human biology, evolutionary physiology, energetics and metabolism


Lauren Price

Associate Professor, Department of Biology

Farmingdale State College, SUNY

Research interests: Platyrrhine paleontology and biogeography, evolutionary history of atelid primates, howler monkey cranial morphology, geometric morphometrics


John G. Robinson

Chief Conservation Officer & Executive Vice President, Conservation and Science

Wildlife Conservation Society

Research interests: conservation biology; tropical forest conservation; ethnozoology, primate sociobiology and ecology; evolutionary biology; wildlife hunting and trading


Robert Rockwell

Research Associate, Ornithology Department

American Museum of Natural History

Research interests: migratory waterfowl, ecology, statistics


F. James Rohlf

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Ecology and Evolution

Research Professor, Department of Anthropology

Research interests: multivariate statistics, geometric morphometrics, numerical taxonomy


Alfred Rosenberger

Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology

Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Research interests: Primate evolution, Primate origins, Neotropical primates


Mitchell Schaffler

CUNY and Wallace Coulter Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering

City College of New York, City University of New York

Research interests: Bone biomechanics, tendon biomechanics, Skeletal fragility and aging, Bone physiology, Osteocyte function, Osteoporosis, Quantitative methods in analysis of skeletal structure


Brian Shearer

Instructor, Department of Cell Biology

NYU Langone Medical Center

Research interests: geometric morphometrics, hominin evolution


Katherine St. John

Professor, Department of Mathematics & Computer Science

Hunter College & CUNY Graduate Center

Research interests: Phylogenetics, Analysis and Visualization of Trees, Random Structures and Algorithms


Ian Tattersall

Curator Emeritus, Divison of Anthropology

American Museum of Natural History

Research interests: Human and nonhuman primate evolution; origin of Homo sapiens; integration of evolutionary and systematic theory with the human fossil record; systematics, behavior, and ecology of the strepsirhine primates


John Van Couvering

Editor in Chief

Micropaleontology Press

Research interests: Principles and practices in stratigraphic geology; age and environments of Cenozoic mammal faunas of Africa and southern Eurasia; the Neogene time scale and chronostratigraphic boundaries


John Wahlert

Professor and Chair, Department of Natural Sciences

Baruch College, City University of New York

Research interests: vertebrate paleontology; cranial morphology of rodents


Ward Wheeler

Curator, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, Computational Sciences

American Museum of Natural History

Research interests: systematics, comparative biology, computational biology, phylogenetics, evolutionary history of metazoa