Jeremy Desilva
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
Dartmouth College
United States of America
Biography
Jeremy DeSilva is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. He is a paleoanthropologist, specializing in the locomotion of the first apes (hominoids) and early human ancestors (hominins). His particular anatomical expertise-- the human foot and ankle-- has contributed to our understanding of the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage. He has studied wild chimpanzees in Western Uganda and early human fossils in Museums throughout Eastern and South Africa. From 1998-2003, Jeremy worked as an educator at the Boston Museum of Science and continues to be passionate about science education. When he is not studying fossil foot bones, or lecturing on human evolution, Jeremy and his wife, Erin, are quite busy with their 5 year-old twins, Benjamin and Josephine.
Research Interest
Human evolution, Australopithecus, Bipedalism, Primate locomotion, Foot functional anatomy, Birth evolution
Publications
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DeSilva JM. A shift toward birthing relatively large infants early in human evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2011 Jan 18;108(3):1022-7.
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Berger LR, Hawks J, de Ruiter DJ, Churchill SE, Schmid P, Delezene LK, Kivell TL, Garvin HM, Williams SA, DeSilva JM, Skinner MM. Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa. Elife. 2015 Sep 10;4:e09560.
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Zipfel B, DeSilva JM, Kidd RS, Carlson KJ, Churchill SE, Berger LR. The foot and ankle of Australopithecus sediba. Science. 2011 Sep 9;333(6048):1417-20.
