Peter B. deMenocal
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
PETER B. deMENOCAL is a professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. He uses proxies in marine sediments, primarily stable isotope and trace metal geochemistry, to reconstruct past changes in ocean circulation and terrestrial climate. Recent research projects include: Holocene climate and ocean circulation variability, tropical to extratropical paleoclimate linkages, Pliocene-Pleistocene evolution of tropical climates, and human evolution and past african climates. Dr. deMenocal is widely recognized as one of the leaders of the scientific effort to understand earth parameters during the time that hominins evolved. He has a B.S. in geology from St. Lawrence University, an M.S. in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, and a Ph.D. in geology from Columbia University.
Andrew P. Hill
Yale University
ANDREW P. HILL is the J. Clayton Stephenson Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, and Curator of Anthropology in the Peabody Museum. Other affiliations are with the Council on Archaeological Studies and the Council on African Studies. Before coming to Yale in 1985 he held research positions at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi, and at Harvard. He is interested in the whole range of human evolution, particularly in the environmental and ecological context in which it occurred. Since 1968 he has carried out field work in eastern Africa, in Pakistan, and in the United Arab Emirates. For many years he has directed the Baringo Paleontological Research Project, a multidisciplinary research program operating in the Tugen Hills, Kenya. He teaches courses on different aspects of human evolution, faunal analysis, and taphonomy. Dr. Hill has a B.Sc. (Hons) from Reading University and a Ph.D. from the University of London.
Thomas C. Johnson
University of Minnesota, Duluth
THOMAS C. JOHNSON is a professor of geology and was the founding director of the Large Lakes Observatory at the University of Minnesota, Duluth from 1994 to 2004. His research interests currently focus on tropical paleoclimatology, based primarily on the analysis of sediment cores recovered from the large lakes of the East African Rift Valley. Dr. Johnson served as a member of the Great Lakes Research Managers Council, International Joint Commission from 2000 to 2004, and he was the co-founder and member of the Steering Committee of the International Decade for East African Lakes (IDEAL) from 1993 to 2005. He serves of the Boards of Directors of DOSECC (Deep Observation and Sampling of the Earth's Continental Crust) and of the International Association of Limnogeologists. He has a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California at San Diego.
John E. Kutzbach
University of Wisconsin-Madison
JOHN E. KUTZBACH (NAS) is professor emeritus of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, and environmental sciences in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to retirement, he was Director at the Center for Climatic Research. He continues a part-time appointment as Associate Director and Senior Scientist. His research focuses on understanding the processes that control climate variablity, and trends in the past, present and future, studying decade/century scale climate variability over recent millennia as well as linkages between vegetation changes and climate changes. Dr. Kutzbach is a fellow of the the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. Some of his awards include the “Revelle Medal” of the American Geophysical Union and the “Milankovitch Medal” of the European Geophysical Society. He has B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Richard Potts
Smithsonian Institution
RICHARD POTTS is a paleoanthropologist and director of the Human Origins Program and curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. His research focuses on the history of the interrelationships between human evolution and the ecosystem. Over the past decade, Dr. Potts has led excavations at early human sites in the East African rift valley, and currently directs a multidisciplinary research team at the handaxe site of Olorgesailie, Kenya. In addition to research articles and books, he has recently completed a book for a general audience titled Humanity's Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. In addition, Dr. Potts was awarded a Certificate of Honor by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for the Emmy-winning Tales of the Human Dawn on PBS. He has a B.A. in anthropology from Temple University and a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University.
Alan R. Rogers
University of Utah
ALAN R. ROGERS is a professor of anthropology and adjunct professor of biology at the University of Utah. Dr. Rogers’ research focuses on using genetic data to understand the history of human population size, based on developing new statistical methods to detect population size changes using sequence data. This largely focuses on understanding the huge population increase of early humans in the Late Pleistocene. Additionally, his research interests include the adaptive evolution of such traits as menopause and human time preference. In 1991, the University of Utah recognized Dr. Rogers’ work with their Superior Research Award. He was a former Associate Editor of Molecular Biology and Evolution. He received a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from the University of New Mexico.
Alan Walker
Pennsylvania State University
ALAN C. WALKER (NAS) is the Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Walker endeavors to extract ancient behaviors from the fossil and taphonomic record. Teeth record information about an individual's life history and semicircular canals are tuned to a species' rapidity of locomotion. Walker is now developing nondestructive methods for examining tooth enamel and measuring fossil labyrinths so that rare hominoid and hominid specimens can be used. He is a research associate of the National Museum of Kenya and has had many collaborative field programs with the Museum, the latest being at Allia Bay, east Lake Turkana. He has a B.A. (hons) in geology from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in anatomy and paleontology from the University of London. He also has an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Chicago. Dr. Walker is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
