Tim White (anthropologist)

Tim White (born August 24, 1950 in Los Angeles, 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.

Education

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 at the University of California, Berkeley in 1977.

He is director of the [http://herc.berkeley.edu/index.php Human Evolution Research Center] and co-director, with Dr. Berhane Asfaw, Dr. Yonas Beyene, and Dr. Giday WoldeGabriel, of the [http://herc.berkeley.edu/MARP.php 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.

White teaches two courses on human paleontology and human osteology, at UC Berkeley. Each Spring semester he teaches one of the two in alternation [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] .

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.

Awards

*Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
*Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
*David S. Ingalls Jr. Award from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
*Member of the National Academy of Sciences
*Distinguished Alumnus of the Year (2000) at the University of California, Riverside.

See also

* List of fossil sites "(with link directory)"
* List of hominina (hominid) fossils "(with images)"

elect Publications

* Asfaw, B., White, T. D., Lovejoy, C. O., Latimer, B., Simpson, S. and Suwa, G. (1999) - "Australopithecus garhi" : a new species of early hominid from Ethiopia", "Science", 284, pp. 629-35.
* Asfaw, B., Beyene, Y., Suwa, G., Walter, R. C., White, T. D., WoldeGabriel, G. and Yemane, T. (1992) - "The earliest Acheulean from Konso-Gardula", "Nature", vol. 360, pp. 732-735.
* Clark, J. D., Asfaw, B., Assefa, G., Harris, J. W. K., Kurashina, H., Walter, R. C., White, T. D. and Williams, M. A. J. (1984) - "Paleoanthropological discoveries in the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia", "Nature", 307, pp. 423-428.
* Johanson, D., White, T.D. et Coppens, Y. (1978) - "A new species of the genus "Australopithecus" (Primates : "Hominidae") from the Pliocene of Eastern Africa", "Kirtlandia", n° 28, pp. 1-14.
* Heinzelin, J. d., Clark, J. D., White, T. D., Hart, W., Renne, P., WoldeGabriel, G., Beyene, Y. and Vrba, E. (1999) - "Environment and Behavior of 2.5-Million-Year-Old Bouri Hominids", "Science", vol. 284, n° 5414, pp. 625 - 629.
* Toth, N. and White, T. (1992) - "Assessing the ritual cannibalism hypothesis at Grotta Guattari", "Quaternaria Nova", Vol. I, 1990-1991, Proccedings of the International Symposium "The fossil man of Monte Circeo : fifty years of studies on the neandertals in Latium", A. Bietti and G. Manzi Eds., pp. 213-222.
* Tim D. White, Gen Suwa and Berhane Asfaw, "Australopithecus ramidus", a new species of early hominid from Aramis, Ethiopia", "Nature" (1994), 371, pp. 306-312.
* Tim D. White, Gen Suwa and Berhane Asfaw, "Ardipithecus ramidus", a new species of early hominid from Aramis, Ethiopia", "Nature" (1995), 375, p. 88.
* White, Tim D. et al. 2006. Asa Issie, Aramis and the Origin of Australopithecus. "Nature", 440(13):883-889.

References

External links

* [http://www.isepp.org/Pages/03-04%20Pages/White.html Webpage on Dr.White]

* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8024035453825980995&q=%22Conversations+with+History%22 On the Trail of our Human Ancestors] Interview - Google Video

* [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/White/white-con0.html Conversation with Tim White]