Claudia A
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at The Graduate Center (CUNY)
Expertise
Biological anthropology; human skeletal biology, osteology; human anatomy; human evolution
Bio
Hi! I'm Claudia, an evolutionary biologist and biological anthropologist that's interested in the evolution of the skull, the dentition, & sex traits across vertebrates. I'm especially interested in dental evolutionary development (evo-devo), sexual polyorphism, and ranges of skeletal variation. I use both traditional osteometric methods and 3D geometric morphometrics in my research. I am also an intersex person, and am interested in advocating for intersex human rights & learning about the sex variation that exists within humans and across in/vertebrates. Outside of the lab, I can be found knitting, reading, and getting back into playing the violin.Project ideas
Skeletal and Dental Variation
The skeleton of humans, fossil hominins, and vertebrates are composed of different kinds of bones, teeth, and other osteological structures. Bones and teeth can be used to help reconstruct the deep past in paleontology, the recent past in bioarchaeology, or in the current day in human biology and forensic anthropology. Students may explore what different bones and teeth are made of, the different parts of the human skeleton & how to identify them, how much variation exists in within groups of one species or across many species, what we can (and can't) say about the past based on skeletal evidence, and how skeletal bioprofiles are created.