Anthropology professor appears on 'The Colbert Report'

Nina Jablonski

University Park, Pa. -- Nina Jablonski, Penn State professor and department head of anthropology, made an appearance on "The Colbert Report," on Wednesday, Feb. 28, to discuss her new book, "Skin: A Natural History," on the cable TV Comedy Central Network, at 11:30 p.m. EST.

A spinoff and counterpart of The Daily Show, a parody of a news show, "The Colbert Report" features Stephen Colbert as a fake right-wing political pundit. He features a wide variety of guests on his show, which has included well-known actors, authors, political personalities and others.

Jablonski's book has attracted coverage in the New York Times, Atlantic Magazine and other major publications.

Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Guns, Germs and Steel," has said of the book: "Nina Jablonski gives us the best account of everything you might want to know about the packaging of our anatomy."

Before coming to Penn State, Jablonski was the Irvine Chair and curator of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. She edited "The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World" and "The Origin and Diversification of Language" (both UC Press), among other books. Her research on human skin has been featured in National Geographic, Scientific American and other publications.

Her research area involves primate evolution, with particular emphasis on the systematics and evolution of Old World Monkeys; anatomical analyses of fossils from eastern Africa and east Asia; study of the evolution of life histories; the origin and evolution of adaptations, and the causes of extinction, especially in relation to environmental change. Most recently, her research on hominid extinctions was presented at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; details are available at http://live.psu.edu/story/22369 online.

A 1975 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she earned her Ph.D from University of Washington in 1981. Her faculty profile is at http://www.anthro.psu.edu/faculty_staff/jablonski.shtml online.