Current position: Assistant Professor

Current affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus

Research website: Link

Research description: I am an anatomist, biological anthropologist and field researcher. My research focuses on human evolutionary anatomy, paleoecology, and human dispersal patterns in Southeast Asia during the past 80,000 years. Specifically, I investigate how climate, environment, and competition for resources may have influenced initial human dispersal pathways to Australia. I use paleoclimate niche modeling and GIS with the goal of increasing the success of traditional fossil survey methods. I am also a National Geographic Explorer and, since 2014, have been a part of an international team of researchers doing human origins excavations in the Lao PDR in concert with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lao Ministry of Heritage, Culture, and Tourism, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the Musee de l’Homme, Paris.