Chemical Paleontology: Paleoclimate and Evolution from the East African Rift System
Global cooling over the past 50 million years has transformed Earth’s ecology. In Africa, increasingly open landscapes saw the adaptive radiation of our hominin ancestors alongside other clades.
What do new geochemical (stable isotope) records from teeth tell us about how African fauna responded to interchange with Eurasia, aridification and increased seasonality? Why do teeth provide unique records of temporally fine-scaled climatic and behavioral processes? And how did primates and human ancestors thrive in changing African landscapes?
Lastly, can the special properties of fossilized teeth extend tropical paleoproteomics further back in time, resolving uncertainties not only in the ecological regimes that framed evolution, but in evolutionary history itself?
About the Speaker
Daniel Green is a paleoecologist and biological anthropologist who studies the environmental context of primate and human evolution in Africa. He studies and teaches vertebrate anatomy and evolution with an emphasis on dentition, and he uses stable isotope geochemistry in his research. He directs the Kenya Field Program at Harvard University.
About the Kimball Lecture Series
The Kimball Lecture is named for Grace Kimball, former professor of microbiology at Â鶹´«Ã½. Lecturers are chosen by Â鶹´«Ã½ biology faculty as scientists who have distinguished themselves in evolutionary biology.
Past Speakers
Past Speakers
- Hazel Barton, Ph.D (2025)
- Loper Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama
- Lecture Topic: "Cave Microbiology: It’s Wild Down There"
- Paul Keim, Ph.D. (2017)
- Northern Arizona University Regents’ Professor in Biology Cowden Endowed Chair in Microbiology
- Lecture Topic: "Tracking Dangerous Pathogens Using Whole Genome Sequencing – Examples from Anthrax and Cholera"
- Dr. W. John Kress (2016)
- Director for Science, Grand Challenges Consortium at the Smithsonian
- Lecture Topic: "Beyond the Tree of Life: Valuing Museum Collections in the Age of Biodiversity"
- John C. Moore (2015)
- Colorado State University Director of Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory; Professor & Head of Ecosystem Science and Sutainability
- Lecture Topic: "A New Soil Ecology: Lessons from Lives Underfoot"
- Dr. Robert B. Jackson (2014)
- Duke University Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
- Lecture Topic: "The Environmental Costs and Benefits of Shale Gas Development"
- Dr. Eric Wieschaus (2013)
- Nobel Laureate, Princeton University
- Lecture Topic: "The Control of Cell Shape: Where Genetics Meets Cell Mechanics"
- Dr. Richard H. Baltz (2012)
- Chief Scientific Officer of CognoGen Biotechnology Consulting
- Lecture Topic: "Genetic Engineering in Development of Lipopeptide Antibiotics"
- Dr. Peter Hudson (2011)
- Willaman Professor of Biology, Pennsylvania State University