Biography

Dean Falk is an American evolutionary anthropologist who lives in Tallahassee, Florida where she is the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology and a Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University. She has taught anatomy and anthropology courses at several universities, and her research has taken her to Africa, Europe, and Asia. Much of her work focuses on the evolution of the human brain (paleoneurology) and the associated emergence of language, music, art, and science. Falk publishes scientific and popular books and articles, and lectures to both academic and public audiences.

Photograph by Ryals Lee, Jr.

Falk has directed research on the brain of a specimen nicknamed Hobbit, which represents a newly recognized human species (Homo floresiensis) and has collaborated on descriptions of Albert Einstein’s brain. A main focus of her research continues to be the important, but frequently neglected, role played by women and children during human evolution, as discussed in her book Finding Our Tongues: Mothers, Infants & the Origins of Language (2009). 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 The Fossil Chronicles: How Two Controversial Discoveries Changed Our View of Human Evolution (2011). She coauthored Geeks, Genes, and the Evolution of Asperger Syndrome with her granddaughter Eve Penelope Schofield (2018). Falk’s current book, The Botanic Age: Planting the Seeds of Human Evolution, is scheduled for publication in January, 2025.