Tim D. White
Timothy Douglas White (born August 24, 1950) 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.
Career
White was born August 24, 1950, in Los Angeles County, California and raised in Lake Arrowhead in neighboring San Bernardino County.[1] He 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[2] at the University of California, Berkeley in 1977 later migrating to the university's Department of Integrative Biology.[3] At present, White teaches courses on human paleontology and human osteology. Generally, each spring semester he teaches one of the two in alternation.[4][5]
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 Berhane Asfaw, William Henry Gilbert, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, and Gen Suwa.
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. In 1994, White discovered what was then the oldest known human ancestor: 4.4 million-year-old Ar. ramidus. Found near the Awash River in Ethiopia, an almost complete fossilized female skeleton named "Ardi" took nearly 15 years to prepare publication of the description.[6]
In 1996, White, along with paleontologist Berhane Asfaw discovered fossils of a 2.5 million-year-old species BOU-VP-12/130 Australopithecus garhi, which is thought to predate H. habilis tool use and manufacturing by 100,000 to 600,000 years.
Honors
- Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences[7]
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science[8]
- David S. Ingalls Jr. Award from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences
- Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award (1995)
- Distinguished Alumnus of the Year (2000) at the University of California, Riverside.
Select publications
- Haile-Selassie, Y.; Suwa, G.; White, T.D. (2004). "Late Miocene Teeth from Middle Awash, Ethiopia, and Early Hominid Dental Evolution". Science 303 (5663): 1503–1505. doi:10.1126/science.1092978. PMID 15001775.
- White, T.D.; Asfaw, B.; DeGusta, D.; Gilbert, H.; Richards, G.D.; Suwa, G.; Howell, F.C. (2003). "Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia". Nature 423 (6941): 742–747. doi:10.1038/nature01669. PMID 12802332.
- White, T.D. (2003). "Early hominids—Diversity or distortion". Science 299 (5615): 1994–1996. doi:10.1126/science.1078294.
- Lovejoy, C.O.; Meindl, R.S.; Ohman, J.C.; Heiple, K.G.; White, T.D. (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 (2): 97–133. doi:10.1002/ajpa.10111. PMID 12237933.
- Asfaw, B.; Gilbert, W.H.; Beyene, Y.; Hart, W.K.; Renne, P.R.; WoldeGabriel, G.; Vrba, E.S.; White, T.D. (2002). "Remains of Homo erectus from Bouri, Middle Awash, Ethiopia". Nature 416 (6878): 317–320. doi:10.1038/416317a. PMID 11907576.
- WoldeGabriel, G.; Haile-Selassie, Y.; Renne, P.R.; Hart, W.K.; Ambrose, S.H.; Asfaw, B.; Heiken, G.; White, T.D. (2001). "Geology and palaeontology of the Late Miocene Middle Awash valley, Afar rift, Ethiopia". Nature 412 (6843): 175–178. doi:10.1038/35084058. PMID 11449271.
- White, T.D. (2000). "A view on the science: Physical anthropology at the millennium". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 113 (3): 287–292. doi:10.1002/1096-8644(200011)113:3<287::AID-AJPA1>3.0.CO;2-8. PMID 11042532.
- Defleur, A.; White, T.D.; Valensi, P.; Slimak, L.; Crégut-Bonnoure, E (1999). "Neanderthal cannibalism at Moula-Guercy, Ard?che, France". Science 286 (5437): 128–131. doi:10.1126/science.286.5437.128. PMID 10506562.
- Asfaw, B.; White, T.D.; Lovejoy, C.O.; Latimer, B.; Simpson, S.; Suwa, G. (1999). "Australopithecus garhi: A new species of early hominid from Ethiopia". Science 284 (5414): 629–635. doi:10.1126/science.284.5414.629. PMID 10213683.
See also
- List of fossil sites (with link directory)
- List of hominina (hominid) fossils (with images)
References
- ↑ "Tim D. White Biography -- Academy of Achievement". achievement.org. October 26, 2010.
- ↑ cites the fact that he was originally in the Dept. of Anthropology
- ↑ Last article explicitly noting affiliation with Dept. of Anthropology First article explicitly noting affiliated with Dept. of Integrative Biology
- ↑ UC Berkeley General Catalog - Integrative Biology http://sis.berkeley.edu/catalog/gcc_list_crse_req?p_dept_name=Integrative+Biology&p_dept_cd=INTEGBI
- ↑ UC Berkeley Department of Integrative Biology: Undergraduate Courses http://ib.berkeley.edu/student/courses/lists/undergrad.php
- ↑ Tim D. White, Berhane Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, C. Owen Lovejoy, Gen Suwa, Giday WoldeGabrie: Ardipithecus ramidus and the Paleobiology of Early Hominids. In: Science 326 (5949), 2009, pp. 75–86; doi:10.1126/science.1175802 PMID 19810190
- ↑ "Science Today". California Academy of Sciences.
- ↑ AAAS - Fellows "WHITE, TIM D, UNIV OF CAL BERKELEY, BERKELEY, USA"
External links
- Webpage on Dr.White
- On the Trail of our Human Ancestors Interview - Google Video
- Conversation with Tim White
- Tim White's research profile
- Director - Human Evolution Research Center at UC Berkeley
- Project Leader - Middle Awash Research Project
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