Penn State anthropologists honored

Penn State anthropologists honored

University Park, Pa. -- Alan Walker, the Evan Pugh Professor of Biological Anthropology and Biology, and Pat Shipman, adjunct professor of biological anthropology, were recently awarded the Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology 2005 Award for Outstanding Research (CRAFT).

Walker's research was in the field of paleoanthropology, the study of the origins and ancestors of human beings through fossil remains; Shipman studies taphonomy, the study of what happens to an organism after its death until its discovery as a fossil.

The CRAFT Research Center, part of Indiana University, is directed towards investigating the archaeological origins and evolution of human technology over the past three million years. The award, a collaboration between CRAFT and the Stone Age Institute, an independent research center dedicated to the archaeological study of human origins and technology development, is presented to individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the field.

Recipients are invited to give a talk on their work as part of the Leighton A. Wilkie Memorial Lecture on Human Origins Research. Past recipients of the award include Jane Goodall, Desmond Clark, and Mary Leakey.

Dr. Shipman pioneered the use of scanning electron microscopy in studies of ancient bone assemblages to determine whether the bones were modified by animals or hominids. In recent years, she has concentrated on the history of anthropology and evolution. She is the author of several award-winning books including, "Taking Wing; Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight" (Simon and Schuster, 1998), winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Award For Science Books and a finalist for the Los Angeles science book club award. Dr. Shipman's latest book, co-authored with Dr. Walker is, "The Ape in the Tree: An Intellectual and Natural History of Proconsul" (Harvard University Press, 2005). The couple also wrote "The Wisdom of Bones" (Simon and Schuster, 1996), the winner of the Rhone-Poulec science book award. She was elected a Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and The Royal Geographic Society.

Dr. Walker works on primate and human evolution, concentrating on the Neogene record from East Africa. He endeavors to extract ancient behaviors from the fossil and taphonomic record and is now developing nondestructive methods for examining tooth enamel and measuring fossil labyrinths so that rare hominoid and hominid specimens can be used. His publications include New Perspectives on the hominids of the Turkana Basin, Kenya (Evol. Anthrop. 11:38-41) and Dental microwear texture analysis reflects diets of living primates and fossil hominins. (Nature 436:693-695), among many others.

He is the recipient of many honors and awards including a John. D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Science, and a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

In addition, Alan Walker has been invited to give the Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture at Princeton University in 2006. This prestigious lecture series was founded in 1912 with a bequest of $25,000 under the will of Louis Clark Vanuxem of the Class of 1879. Previous lecturers have included Edwin P. Hubble on "The Exploration of Space" (1931-1932); Thomas Mann on "Goethe's Faust" inter alia (1938-1939); James B. Conant on "The Mobilization of American Scientists for the War" (1945-1946); Ralph Ellison on "The Novel in America" (1952-1953); and Carl Sagan on "Extraterrestrial Life" (1972-1973). Vanuxem pursued a career in insurance, eventually specializing in insurance law. He died in 1903.