Tim D. White

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Tim D. White (born August 24, 1950 in Los Angeles county, California) is an American Paleoanthropologist and Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most famous for his work on "Lucy" as Australopithecus afarensis with discoverer Donald Johanson. Infamous in the field for his delayed publication of the Ardipithecus material, he also had a falling out with his colleagues at the Institute of Human Origins, resulting in one of the many academic feuds which unfortunately divides the field of Paleoanthropology.

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[edit] Education and Teaching

White majored in biology and anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. He received his Ph.D. in physical anthropology from the University of Michigan. White took a position in the Department of Anthropology[1] at the University of California, Berkeley in 1977 later migrating to the university's Department of Integrative Biology[2]. At present, White teaches courses on human paleontology and human osteology. Generally, each spring semester he teaches one of the two in alternation[3][4].

He is director of the Human Evolution Research Center and co-director, with Berhane Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, and Giday WoldeGabriel, of the Middle Awash Research Project.

White has mentored a number of prominent paleoanthropologists, such as Susan Antón, Berhane Asfaw, David DeGusta, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, and Gen Suwa.

[edit] Collaborations

In 1974 White worked with Richard Leakey's team at Koobi Fora, Kenya. Richard Leakey was so impressed with White's work he recommended White to his mother, Mary Leakey, to help her with hominid fossils she had found at Laetoli, Tanzania.

White took a job at the University of California, Berkeley in 1977 and collaborated with J. Desmond Clark and F. Clark Howell. White later went on to find what was then the oldest known human ancestor: 4.4 million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus. White made yet another discovery that involved a 2.5 million-year-old Australopithecus garhi.

White has announced the publication of an Ar. ramidus skeleton (ARA-VP-6/500) that was found in 1995 that is now in press.

[edit] Awards

[edit] See also

[edit] Select publications

  • Haile-Selassie, Y., Suwa, G. and White, T.D. 2004. Late Miocene Teeth from Middle Awash, Ethiopia, and Early Hominid Dental Evolution. Science 303:1503-1505.
  • White, T.D., B. Asfaw, D. DeGusta, H. Tilbert, G.D. Richards, G. Suwa, and F.C. Howell. 2003. Pleistocene Homo sapiens> from Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 423:742-747.
  • White, T.D. 2003. Early hominids--Diversity or distortion? Science 299:1994-1996.
  • Lovejoy, C.O., R.S. Meindl, J.C. Ohman, K.G. Heiple, and T.D. White. 2002. The Maka femur and its bearing on the antiquity of human walking: Applying contemporary concepts of morphogenesis to the human fossil record. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 119:97-133.
  • Asfaw, B., W.H. Gilbert, Y. Beyene, W.K. Hart, P.R. Renne, G. WoldeGabriel, E.S. Vrba, and T.D. White. 2002. Remains of Homo erectus from Bouri, Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 416:317-320.
  • WoldeGabriel, G., Y. Haile-Selassie, P.R. Renne, W.K. Hart, S.H. Ambrose, B. Asfaw, G. Heiken, and T.D. White. 2001. Geology and palaeontology of the Late Miocene Middle Awash valley, Afar rift, Ethiopia. Nature 412:175-178.
  • White, T.D. 2000. A view on the science: Physical anthropology at the millennium. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 113:287-292.
  • Defleur, A., T.D. White, P. Valensi, L. Slimak, and E. CrŽgut-Bonnoure. 1999. Neanderthal cannibalism at Moula-Guercy, Ard?che, France. Science 286:128-131.
  • Asfaw, B., T.D. White, C.O. Lovejoy, B. Latimer, S. Simpson, and G. Suwa. 1999. Australopithecus garhi: A new species of early hominid from Ethiopia. Science 284:629-635.

[edit] References

  1. ^ [1] cites the fact that he was originally in the Dept. of Anthropology
  2. ^ Last article explicitly noting affiliation with Dept. of Anthropology First article explicitly noting affiliated with Dept. of Integrative Biology
  3. ^ UC Berkeley General Catalog - Integrative Biology http://sis.berkeley.edu/catalog/gcc_list_crse_req?p_dept_name=Integrative+Biology&p_dept_cd=INTEGBI
  4. ^ UC Berkeley Department of Integrative Biology: Undergraduate Courses http://ib.berkeley.edu/student/courses/lists/undergrad.php
  5. ^ Fellows of the California Academy of Sciences
  6. ^ AAAS - Fellows "WHITE, TIM D, UNIV OF CAL BERKELEY, BERKELEY, USA"

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_D._White"