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