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Welcome to the Biological Anthropology webpage.
What is biological anthropology?
Biological anthropology is a science that studies the morphological, behavioral, and cultural evolution of humans and their living and extinct relatives.
Meet the faculty!
Samantha Hens, PhD
Expertise: Skeletal biology, bioarcheology, human osteology, forensic anthropology
Dr. Hens has a broad background in teaching and research. Her primary area of expertise is skeletalbiology, both human and non-human primate. Some of her earlier work focused on three-dimensionalmodeling of growth and development in orangutan and gorilla crania and regression models for statureestimation in paleoanthropological contexts. More recently her work has focused on health andpopulation relationships, including: fluctuating asymmetry as a sign of developmental stability in ancientRoman populations; population biodistance along the Italian peninsula from the Iron Ages to earlyMiddle Ages; and new models for examining links between anemia and mortality in historic Portuguesepopulations, relating these data to historic socio-political trends and modern public health data.Additionally, she has published a series of papers on Bayesian approaches to age estimation from thehuman skeleton.
She routinely teaches courses in Human Osteology, Human Skeletal Analysis, Bioarchaeology, Paleoanthropology, and Forensic Anthropology. See her webpage for more details!
Clara Scarry, PhD
Expertise: Primatology and behavioral ecology
(Bio coming soon!)
Nandini Singh, PhD
Expertise: Primate craniofacial evolution and development, cranofacial anomalies, and three-dimensional morphometrics
Dr. Singh is a biological anthropologists who uses models from evolutionary developmental biology to inform her research. Her work focuses on examining the underlying developmental mechanisms that drive craniofacial eolution in humans and other primates, mapping the correspondence between the genotype and phenotype. She uses micro computed-tomography imaging, 3-D geometric morphometrics, and computational and statistical techniques to quantify and analyze morphological data.
Her current projects include:
Dr. Singh teaches introductory, upper division, and graduate courses in biological anthropology. Her teaching philosophy centers on challenging, informing, facilitating, and encouraging students to think of science as a process. She is deeply mindful of the uniqueness each student brings to the classroom and how her/his/their individual experiences enrich the learning environment. For more information go to her website!
Roger Sullivan, PhD 
Expertise: Evolutionary medicine, biocultural and biomedical approaches, human behavior and variation
Dr. Sullivan is a biological anthropologist who uses evolutionary and ecological theory to study the causes of human behavior, with a focus on behavioral disorders across cultures. Between 1998 and 2004, he was engaged in longitudinal fieldwork of factors affecting the expression of mental illness in Palau, Micronesia.
Dr. Sullivan has continued his research focus on the tensions between biological and cultural factors influencing mental and behavioral disorders, including how logical reasoning and social cognition affect schizophrenia and autism, and how neurobiology and local ecology affect drug use disorders. His work on ingigenous drug use in several settings has grown into a long-term collaborative focus on the role of plan neurotoxins in human evolution and has lead to an extensive critique of current drug-reward theory.
Dr. Sullican teaches introductory through graduate classes in biological anthropology including: Evolutionary Medicine, Evolution of Human Behavior, and Human Variation. You can read more about his research and teaching at his website!