Timothy Bromage

Biography

Professor Bromage directs the Hard Tissue Research Unit (HTRU), a mineralized tissue preparation and imaging technology development laboratory of the Department of Biomaterials and Biomimetics, NYUCD. Mineralized tissue biology with emphasis on its translation to environmental and evolutionary studies are key to many of Bromage's HTRU pursuits, which include microanatomical correlates of bone and tooth biomechanics, enamel and bone growth rate variability in respect to environmental perturbations, and skeletal disease research. Recently, he has reported on a hitherto unrecognized chronobiological rhythm in bone microstructure that corresponds to a previously observed but enigmatic enamel formation rhythm in mammals, establishing the basis for understanding how chronobiology and organismal life history evolution are integrated. Professor Bromage supplements laboratory research with African Late Pliocene paleontological fieldwork of significance to human evolutionary research, the surveys of which have recovered the oldest known representative of the human genus, Homo rudolfensis, 2.4 Ma, as well as its contemporary, Paranthropus boisei, from the shores of Lake Malawi. Fieldwork on Late Pleistocene pygmy elephant and pygmy hippopotamus localities in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are also ongoing, which provides a natural experiment of relevance to interpretations of modern human dental reduction. 

Research Interest

 establishing the basis for understanding how chronobiology and organismal life history evolution are integrated.