Zeray Alemseged, PhD, recently joined the Deaprtment of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. Alemseged's specialty is early human evolution, rounding out the research focuses in UChicago's top-ranked paleontology program.
Alemseged comes to Chicago from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. For several months each year, he conducts fieldwork in the Afar in Ethiopia, a "hotbed" of paleontological activity. According to Alemseged,
Today’s humans, you and I, are so distinct, so far removed both anatomically and behaviorally from other animals. There is no other animal that has your brain. There is no other animal that uses computers and reflects on its origins...So, the key transitional moments in our evolutionary history that we paleoanthropologists establish will allow us to understand our links to our animal origins. Establishing those milestones allows us as scientists to know what the process was like, and allows the lay person to understand the links we have with nature.”
Read the full story at Science Life.