Samuel Márquez

Biography

Samuel Márquez is currently Director of Gross Cell at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, United States of America.

Research Interest

Dr. Márquez is a functional craniofacial comparative anatomist whose research interests are in the evolution of the nose and paranasal sinuses and its clinical relevance particularly in the area of sinusitis. He is grounded in traditional gross anatomic dissection, morphometrics of dry skulls, and CT & MR imaging to understand human diversity of living populations. Dr. Márquez research has taken him to museums in Central and South America, Europe and the U.S. to examine and measure diversity across numerous skull specimens housed in their osteological collections. Research goals are centered on questions concerning human origins that are driven by the theme of primate and human evolution with direct relevance to clinical consequences. He has scanned a large number of crania housed in the Division of Anthropology and Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History including Egyptian mummies dating to the predynastic era circa 3,600 B.C.E. as well as a Homo erectus calvaria from Indonesia catalogued as Sambungmachan 3 calvaria (SM-3). Dr. Márquez and the team he assembled in 2001 published in The Anatomical Record journal three papers on this curious fossil specimen. Findings were covered in both the international and national press that included The New York Times and NewsDay from New York and from El Tiempo and El Colombiano from the cities of Bogota and Cali in Colombia, South America.