 |  |
||
 |    |  |
|
 |  |  |
|
 |  |
||
Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > Faculty Experts at Washington University in St. Louis >
Ralph E. Morrow Distinguished University Professor of Physical Anthropology
Expertise: Miocene hominids, biomechanics, primate comparative and functional morphology, quantitative methods Bio:
WUSTL Contact Information:
Education:
Additional Background: At present, Smith's work is divided about equally among two main themes. First,he is involved in studies of applied comparative functional morphology. In this work, he attempts to identify relationships between form and function in living primates that may provide insight into the causes for variations in form among fossil hominids. He is particularly interested in the ecological, behavioral, and life-history implications of differences among primate species in body mass, sexual dimorphism in body mass, neonatal maturity, and in the morphology and biomechanics of the cranio-facial skeleton. His second major area of interest concerns the methods used to draw inferences about the past from the present. In this work, he focuses on the process of paleontological inference itself and asks questions such as "How do we test statements made about the behavior or ecology of extinct species? How much confidence can we have in these inferences?" Much of this work concerns the theory and logic of statistical methods, particularly some of the new comparative methods that attempt to incorporate phylogenetic information into statistical models.
Additional Education:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Download
| Related Information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Media Assistance:
 Neil Schoenherr News Writer; Assoc. Record Editor nschoenherr@wustl.edu (314) 935-5235
Related Groups:
Related Topics:
Revised: Friday, July 11, 2008 
Email this page
Print ready page
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
WUSTL News by E-mail |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|