I am a biological anthropologist broadly trained in evolutionary anthropology with a focus on primate evolution and skeletal growth and development. I received my training at the University of Minnesota in the United States.

My research interests lie within the interplay between ontogeny and evolution, whereby slight alterations in a population’s ontogeny can lead to divergent adult shapes – potentially leading to evolutionary change. To approach these broader questions, I use three-dimensional surface scanning technology, landmark-based geometric morphometrics, and multivariate statistical analyses on population-level differences in growth and development. My work has primarily focused on the skeletal remains of gorillas and chimpanzees in Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. Over half of the skeletal remains in the collections are associated with demographic, behavioral, ecological, and veterinary datasets. Correlations drawn from these datasets provide unprecedented context for skeletal morphology. In addition to my work with extant primates, I have recently begun applying these concepts and techniques to the fossil record at the site of Drimolen located in South Africa. The site is approximately 2 million years old and offers a snapshot into a key period in human and primate evolution.

• Primate skeletal biology
• Primate evolution
• Cranial ontogeny
• Population-level variation
• 3D geometric morphometrics