Dean Falk of the Department of Anthropology has been named an Honorary Professor of Human Biology by the University of Vienna. The faculty for natural sciences at the University of Vienna voted unanimously to bestow the honor on Falk. She is one of only 18 scientists to receive this honor since 1945, said Horst Seidler, a professor with the University of Vienna's Institute for Human Biology.
Falk is known for her novel "radiator" theory of human brain development and her expertise in the field of human brain evolution. She and Seidler have collaborated on a new approach to studies of fossil skulls: computer-generated 3-D stereolithographic models of original fossils.
"We believe that stereolithographic reconstructions have the potential for helping to resolve difficult questions about the origins of Neanderthal and anatomically modern people," report Falk and Seidler, in a paper accepted for publication by the Journal of Human Evolution.
Brain size began increasing in hominids, our apelike ancestors, some two million years ago. That increase in size, Falk argues, began only after a mechanism for cooling the brain was in place - namely, a system of cranial blood vessels that prevent the brain from overheating. And that system, she says, developed in response to our ancestors' walking on two legs.
Iris Berger of the Department of History will receive the Distinguished Africanist Award
from the New York State African Studies Association (NYASA) at its 22nd Annual
Conference on June 10-12 at Russell Sage College in Troy.
The award is given each year at the NYASA meeting. The awards panel said the honor when
to Berger this year "in recognition of her scholarly contributions to the development of
African historical studies, and especially to studies of African women."
Distinguished Africanist