News

Congratulations to PhD candidate and Graduate Affiliate, William Aguado, who won Best Genetics Poster at the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) in Baltimore, March 2025! His poster, titled “Evolution of Primate Salivary PRP Genes in Response to...

On March 7, 2025, the Anthropology Department held its annual Second Year Colloquium, a key milestone where second year Ph.D. students present their developing dissertation research. This year’s presenters included CHES members Natalie Robinson and Miarisoa Ramilison, with Natalie presenting on her...

CHES congratulates Dr. Erin Vogel on her appointment to the Scientific Executive Committee (SEC) of The Leakey Foundation. The SEC plays a central role in the Foundation’s scientific mission, with members reviewing grant proposals, advising the Board of Trustees, and guiding educational and...

We are proud to announce that Eva Hernandez-Janer, a Ph.D. candidate and CHES Graduate Affiliate, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (NSF DDRIG). Her project, titled "The Energetic Consequences of Peatland Fire Smoke on Wild Bornean...

On October 9, 2024, the CHES hosted its annual Zelnick-Belzberg Research Night, honoring outstanding CHES graduate students who have produced excellent theses, research, or publications. This year’s awardee, Rebecca Brittain, delivered a fascinating talk on her current research, marking her as the...

Dr. Robin Fox, a pioneering figure in the world of anthropology and esteemed founder of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University, passed away on the morning of January 18, 2024, at the age of 89. His legacy as a scholar, teacher, and mentor will forever shape the landscape of social...

CHES faculty and director, Erin Vogel, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation’s to support her research, “Integrative Wildlife Nutrition: From Molecules to Macro-Ecology” for 2.2 million USD. This award is in collaboration with colleagues, Dr. Katherine Amato (Northwestern...

Each year, The Zelnick Family Research Fund, an endowment established by the Zelnick-Belzberg Charitable Trust, provides funding for the research of an exemplary CHES graduate affiliate in their second year in the PhD program. This April 2023, we will celebrate and highlight research made possible...

Fred Foster CHES Graduate Affiliate Fred Foster passed his doctoral dissertation defense on June 15, 2022. Fred’s dissertation, titled “Adaptations in the Structure, Composition, and Properties of Primate Tooth Enamel” applied tools from material science engineering to address problems in the...

Congratulations to two of our CHES grad affiliates who were awarded a Fulbright award! The award will support dissertation fieldwork for Eva Hernandez-Janer in Indonesia and Anissa Speakman in Zambia. Eva Hernandez-Janer Eva was awarded the Fulbright IIE Fellowship to support her research in...

Research conducted by Rutgers alumna Renee Boucher for her honors thesis was recently published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Ms. Boucher received financial support for her work from CHES in the form of a Barry C. Lembersky Undergraduate Research Award. Her co-authors include...

Today, Stephanie Marciniak, presented a fascinating lecture entitled "The Promises and Challenges of Primate Paleogenomics: Insights from the Nuclear Genome of a Large Extinct Lemur Megaladapis edwardsi." Dr. Marciniak, who is a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State University, is using her...

CHES Graduate Affiliate Elizabeth Ballare passed her doctoral dissertation defense today. Liz’s dissertation “Health Effects of Rehabilitation and Reintroduction on Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii)” is based on her two-year fieldwork study in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia at the...

Three CHES Graduate Affiliates in the Anthropology Department did their "Second Year Colloquium" presentations today. This Colloquium allows graduate students in their second year in the PhD program an opportunity to present and discuss with faculty and other students their developing ideas for...

CHES Undergraduate Affiliate Alumnus, John, or as he's known among us here, JP Calcitrai (Rutgers Class of 2018) was just admitted to the PhD Program in Animal Behavior at the University of California, Davis. JP will commence his PhD career next Fall, working under the supervision of Jeff Schank in...

CHES Graduate Affiliate Alex Pritchard passed his doctoral dissertation defense today. Alex's dissertation "Variation of Stress Coping in a Socially Complex Primate" is based on his field research on olive baboons (Papio anubis) he conducted for 18 months at the Project Papio Research Site in...

Today, Curtis Marean gave the first lecture in the CHES Lecture Series for this semester. Dr. Marean's presentation was entitled, "A General Model for the Paleoecology of the Now Submerged Palaeo-Agulhas Plain, An Extinct Ecosystem Crucial to Modern Human Origins," based upon this many years of...

CHES Alumna Dr. Mareike Janiak (2018) is a coauthor of a newly published study using genomics to better understand the ecology and life history of primates. Compared to other mammals, nonhuman (as well as human) primates are characterized by especially pronounced longevity, brain size and dietary...

CHES Faculty Member Dr. Liping Zhao has developed an early treatment that will aid in preventing complications resulting from COVID19 infection. The formula has approval from the FDA for clinical trials commencing this month. To read more about Dr. Zhao's work, please check out: ...

CHES Almunus Dr. Stan Kivai (2018), who earlier this summer received an award from the International Primatological Society has just won another prestigious award! Dr. Kivai is the recipient of the American Society of Primatologists Conservationist Award of the Year 2020. as the ASP Conservation...