News

FOUR CHES Undergraduate Affiliates today presented their Senior Honors Thesis research in a special symposium at the Department of Anthropology: Rohan Alibutud: "Prioritization of Autism Candidate Genes from Whole-Genome Sequences of Affected Families." Rohan's research on an immense genetic...

CHES Faculty member Jinchuan Xing is one of this year's recipients of the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research. Jin is doing exciting research in genetics and evolutionary questions, some of which he presented in a CHES Featured Research Evening. Congratulations, Jin!

CHES Graduate Affiliate Alex Pritchard was just awarded a prestigious Louis Bevier Fellowship from Rutgers to support him during the data analysis and writing of his dissertation. Alex did his dissertation research on "The Personality of Stress Coping" in wild baboon, which was supported in part by a...

CHES Graduate Affiliate Will Aguado was just awarded a Fullbright IIE Fellowship to support his research in Indonesia, "The influence of plant secondary metabolites on diet selection in wild Bornean orangutans." This award will support a year of Will's field research at the Tuanan Orangutan...

The Lembersky Conferences in Human EvolutionaryStudies have been an extremely productive and enlightening series of meetings address some particular aspect of evolution. The CHES faculty has now chosen the topic for the next Lembersky Conference to be held in 2021: "From the Genome to the General...

Dr. Jeffrey Rogers (Baylor College of Medicine, The Human Genome Sequencing Center) gave a lecture today entitled "What Ernst Mayr Didn't Know: Insights into Baboons and Other Primates from Whole Genome Sequencing". Dr. Rogers presented some of the new genetic data that he and his collaborators are using...

Dr. Nicole Torosin, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Genetics here at Rutgers University, presented a lecture today, "Genetic Variation in Howler Monkey TLR7 and TLR8: Potential Implications for Susceptibility to Yellow Fever Virus." Dr. Torosin's research focused on determining the genetic...

Dr. Steve Weiner of the Weizmann Institute of Science gave a lecture today, "Microarchaeology and the Underlying Science." In his research, Dr. Weiner synthesizes Archaeology, Chemistry, and the Natural Sciences into an approach offering particularly powerful insights into the human past.

CHES Alumna (2016) Emily Lynch, whose dissertation research was focused on baboons, has just been hired as Associate Curator of Research at the North Carolina Zoo. In her new position, Dr. Lynch will oversee all zoo-based research as part of the Education, Science, and Conservation Department. She...

Dr. Pat Shipman (Pennsylvania State University) gave a lecture today on "Dogs and People and Dingoes." This was a fascinating presentation of human-canid coevolution and interaction, the domestication process, the global spread of Homo sapiens into Europe and Australia and the role canids played (and...

CHES PhD Student Rebecca Brittain just received a grant from the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation to support her research: "The Role of the Gut Microbiome in Digestion and Energy Production in Wild Bornean Orangutans Across Shifting Nutritional Landscapes.” Becca is currently in Indonesia doing this...

CHES Alumna (2016), Darcy Shapiro, was just hired as Content Manager for Complexly, a media production company that creates YouTube content.  Complexly was behind some of the biggest educational channels (like SciShow and CrashCourse.  In her new position, Darcy will be working on the PBS Eons YouTube...

Carel van Schaik (Director, Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich) gave a lecture today on cognition in orangutans. He focused on how curiosity (or rather, a fascinating apparent deficit in curiosity in orangutans), social experience when young, and ecological conditions help to explain...

CHES Graduate Affiliate Rebecca Brittain just received a grant from the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) Henry Luce Foundation. These funds will help to support the dissertation research that Becca is currently doing in Indonesia, "The Role of the Gut Microbiome in Digestion and...

A highly successful Third Lembersky Conference ended today. Organized by Erin Vogel (CHES Faculty Member) and Jessica Rothman (Hunter College), the program in primate nutritional ecology, energetics, and health included presentations by 22 scholars including CHES members Gloria Dominguez-Bello,...

The Third Lembersky Conference in Human Evolutionary Studies began today. Shown here is CHES Faculty member Dr. Erin Vogel, a co-organzer of the conference, Advances in Primate Nutritional Ecology, Health, and Energetics. The conference brings together a group of international researchers,...

Tim Bransford successfully defended his dissertation less than two months ago, and has now begun working with Dr. Mitch Irwin as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Northern Illinois University. For his dissertation, Tim investigated the energetics and nutrition of wild...

CHES PhD student Fred Foster just published with coauthor P.J. Constantino a paper testing the hypothesis that wear resistance of tooth enamel changes as a tooth is worn down. Fred and his collaborator applied the microscratch test to the surface of three transverse sections cut through molars...

CHES Alum Sarah Hlubik has just begun a postdoc at the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at George Washington University. Sarah obtained her PhD in Anthropology in 2018 for her dissertation "Finding Prometheus: Evidence for fire in the Early Pleistocene at FxJj20 AB, Koobi Fora, Kenya."...

CHES Graduate Affiliate Tim Bransford (center in photo) passed his doctoral dissertation this afternoon. Tim's dissertation, "The Energetic and Nutritional Costs of Motherhood in Wild Bornean Orangutans" is based on his research in Borneo for almost two years as well as a database of long-term data...