Dean Falk
Dean Falk is an American evolutionary anthropologist who splits her time between Santa Fe, New Mexico where she is a Senior Scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR), and Tallahassee, Florida where she is the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology at Florida State University. Since receiving her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1976, she has taught anatomy and anthropology courses at various universities. Her research on the fossil record has taken her to museums in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Broadly speaking, her work focuses on the evolution of the human brain (paleoneurology) and the associated emergence of language, music, art, and science. Falk has published numerous scientific and popular books and articles, and has lectured extensively about evolution to both academic and public audiences.
Self portrait by Eve Penelope Schofield (Dean Falk’s granddaughter) when she was eleven years old.
Recent projects include collaborative studies of the brain of a controversial specimen nicknamed Hobbit, which represents a newly discovered human species (Homo floresiensis), and an investigation of the brain of Albert Einstein. Falk has also done research on the important, but frequently neglected, role played by women and children during human evolution, as detailed in her book Finding Our Tongues: Mothers, Infants & the Origins of Language. Her experiences as a woman in the volatile field of paleoanthropology, which has traditionally been dominated by men, are part of the reason she wrote her most recent book, The Fossil Chronicles: How Two Controversial Discoveries Changed Our View of Human Evolution. Mid-2011 finds Falk working on several projects with colleagues from Europe and Africa. After that she will focus on a new interest— writing a book with her granddaughter, Eve, about Asperger syndrome.
