Research interests: Evolutionary biology, human paleontology, life history, dental anthropology
I am interested in how humans differ from other mammals in life cycle and life span, why we differ and whether we can reconstruct the evolutionary history of our life cycle from the fossil record. Just as we can study human growth from radiographs of teeth and bones, fossils of individuals who died as children preserve actual growth records of extinct species. By comparing growth and development in the fossil record with our broad knowledge of the maturation of living species, we gain information that addresses some fundamental questions about human evolution. For example, we now have evidence that the human life cycle took shape millions of years later than we once thought. It now appears that the fossil record contains a wealth of information on the evolution of mammalian life cycles.