I am a zooarchaeologist at the Evolutionary Studies Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. I analyse animal remains (bones and teeth) from archaeological and fossil sites. I have studied animal remains from South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Canada (British Columbia) and the USA (Southwest). My focus of my research is on the origins of hunting, the spread of livestock, and taphonomy.
I received my bachelor degree (B.Sc) in animal science and my Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from The Hebrew University (Rehovot, Israel). I received my Ph.D. in bone biomechanics and my teaching certificate (biology teacher for high schools) from the Weizmann institute of Science. During my Ph.D. my research focused on the relation between trabecular bone structure and whole bone mechanical function. Next, I started a joint Postdoc position at Harvard University's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology (Cambridge, MA) and The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany). There, I did research on extinct hominins bipedal locomotion (Australopithecines) and its manifestation in the structure of the ankle's trabecular bone.
In 2012, I became a teaching fellow at Harvard University and later I accepted a lecturer position. I taught the labs for “Life Science 2” (anatomy and physiology) and my own course - “Bone Biology and Biomechanics”. In 2013, I accepted an Assistant Professor position at Winthrop University (Rock Hill, SC) and started to teach during Fall semester 2013. At Winthrop I taught “Human Anatomy” (lectures and labs), “The Biology of Bone” (lectures and labs), and other undergraduate and graduate courses (both for Biology and non-Biology majors). In January 2019 I accepted an Associate Professor of anatomy position at the College Of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Vet Biomedical Sciences at Long Island University (POST).
Senior postdoc working on molecular anthropology, human population prehistory, human migration and contact, human evolution. Focus on sub-Saharan Africa human diversity, South American prehistory, and congruence between genetic and cultural diversity.
Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour; Executive Editor, Animal Behaviour 2006-2011; Editor, Behavioral Ecology, Evolutionary Human Sciences, Advances in the Study of Animal Behaviour; Past Member of Council, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
I earned my PhD in the Department of Biological Anthropology & Anatomy at Duke University (1995 – 2001), and my advisor was Carel van Schaik. Although I conducted some research on wild primates, my doctoral research consisted of comparative studies of primate life history, social systems, and cognition.
I did postdoctoral research in Duke’s Department of Neurobiology (2001-2006), and my supervisor was Michael Platt. My research focused on mechanisms of social attention in primates. During this time I took up distance running and began investigating sex differences in performance and motivation.
In 2006, I joined the Psychology Department at Grand Valley State University.
Since 2016 Reader (Associate Professor) at Liverpool John Moores University
2009 - 2015 Head of Jr. research Group
2004 – 2009 Post-doc; Primate Research Centre, Indonesia; Inst. for Mind and Biology, University of Chicago, USA; Dept. of Reproductive Biology, German Primate Center (DPZ)
1999 – 2004 Doctoral project; Inst. for Human Biology/Anthropology, Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin)
1998 – 1999 Scientific assistant; Inst. for Freshwater Biology/Fisheries, Berlin
1989 – 1997 Study of Biology; Cologne University, FU Berlin
Nikolaos Gkantidis has been a full-time Senior Staff Member at the Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, University of Bern, Switzerland, since 2016. He earned the Venia Docendi (Privatdozent) title from the same institution in 2018 and the Assoc. Prof. title in 2024. Prof. Gkantidis graduated from the Dental School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2006). Subsequently, he pursued a post-graduate program in Orthodontics at the University of Athens, graduating with honours (2010), and run an orthodontic practice in Thessaloniki (2010-2016). Prof. Gkantidis completed his doctoral studies in Bern (2013) and also served as a part-time staff member of the Department (2012-2016). In 2022, he obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Prof. Gkantidis has published numerous original research papers and forged national and international collaborations in key research areas, which include the development and utilization of 3D imaging techniques in clinical research and practice, the study of facial attractiveness, and the investigation of craniofacial form. For his innovative work he has received various national and international grants and awards.
Dr Kaburu is currently a Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology at Nottingham Trent University, in the UK. Dr Kaburu completed his PhD in Anthropology in 2014 at the School of Anthropology and Conservation of the University of Kent in the UK, during which he studied grooming behaviour and cooperation in wild chimpanzees.
In 2014-2015, he was a post-doc in Dr Stephen Suomi’s Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, at the National Institutes of Health in the US where he examined the development of social cognition in infant rhesus macaques. Between 2016 and 2018 he was a post-doctoral fellow in Dr Brenda McCowan’s Laboratory at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of California in Davis, during which he studied the drivers and outcome of human-macaque interactions in Northern India.
His main areas of research interests are animal (especially primates) social behaviour and conservation, human-wildlife interactions and infant development
Dai Koyabu is an Associate Professor of Anatomy at the City University of Hong Kong. He was educated at Kyoto University, University of California at Berkeley, and University of Tokyo, and had postdoctoral training at University of Zurich. His research focuses on the anatomy, evolution and development of the mammalian cranium. Editorial Board of Mammalian Biology, Mammal Study, and Morphomuseum. Recommender for PCI Paleontology. Executive Committee Member of the International Society of Vertebrate Morphology (ISVM).
A Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Binghamton University in New York.
Alvaro Montenegro is from Brazil but has lived in North America since 1999. Alvaro's formal training is in Physical Oceanography and he obtained his MS from the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and his PhD from Florida State University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria (BC, Canada) where he started to change his focus from oceanography to climatology. After a period as assistant professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish (NS, Canada) he arrived at Ohio State University in 2012. Alvaro's current research interests encompass various aspects of climate change and climate variability, particularly physical and biogeochemical processes occurring at the global and continental spatial scales. Alvaro looks into these problems using mainly climate models but also employ observations. He has used models to address questions on a broad range of subjects from paleoclimate to climate policy, with a concentration on carbon cycle modeling. He is also interested in using paleoclimatic data to constrain archaeological and biogeographic theories.
Stevo Popovic is a full professor at University of Montenegro who has 10+ years’ experience with particular focus on planning, conducting, and evaluating research studies dealing with health and exercise, which also include clinical trials. As a sports and exercise scientist he uses knowledge of how the body works to help people improve their health and sporting ability at large. However, he has also profound insight into physical anthropology, and understands the complexity of how physical activity affect the human body and its composition; but, also into social anthropology that helps to understand the social side of the same issues.
With a background as a Ph.D. from the University of Novi Sad and postdoc from the University of Ljubljana (ranked 1st in Slovenia, 326th in the global 2024 rating, and scored in the top 50% across 228 research topics), as well as a teacher and research at the University of Montenegro, he has achieved the following key competencies: knowledge of teaching and the ability to design courses, project and data management, study design expertise, excellent communication skills, and dissemination skills in both written and oral etc. He currently holds several leading positions in the national and international projects, as well as leading roles and memberships in the governing bodies of professional and scientific organizations. He is a former Dean of Faculty of Sport and Physical Education and Editor-in-Chief of University of Montenegro Press, both in two mandates, former member of HEPA Europe Steering Committee, FIEPS Board of Directors member and member of Montenegrin Academy of Science and Art (Centre for Young Scientists and Artists). On the other hand, among several other positions, he is currently a Co-Director of Balkan Institute of Science and Innovation and Associate Editor in British Journal of Sports Medicine (Physical Activity and Population Health section). Authored 82 articles in peer-reviewed journals indexed by Scopus database (22% as the first, 17% as the last, 52% as the co-author and 9% as the single author; 23 documents in top citation percentiles), several books, book chapters and conference papers and abstracts. Cited >6,600 times; H-index = 21; Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) = 5.16. As a supervisor or methodological consultant contributed to four PhD dissertations as well as many bachelor and master research theses. In 2020, on the Stanford/Elsevier’s list of top 2% researchers globally.