Robert Jurmain received an A.B. in Anthropology from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard. He taught at San Jose State University from 1975 to 2004 and is now professor emeritus. During his teaching career, he taught courses in all major branches of physical anthropology, including osteology and human evolution, with the greatest concentration in general education teaching for introductory students. His research interests are skeletal biology of humans and non-human primates, paleopathology, and paleoanthropology. In addition to his three textbooks, which together have appeared in 35 editions, he is the author of STORIES FROM THE SKELETON: BEHAVIORAL RECONSTRUCTION IN HUMAN OSTEOLOGY (1999, Gordon Breach Publishers), as well as numerous articles in research journals.
Lynn Kilgore earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she now holds an affiliate faculty position. Her primary research interests are osteology and paleopathology. She has taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in human osteology, primate behavior, human heredity and evolution, and general physical anthropology. Her research focuses on developmental defects as well as on disease and trauma in human and great ape skeletons.
Wenda Trevathan is regents' professor, emerita, of anthropology at New Mexico State University, where she taught from 1983 to 2009. She is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural factors underlying human reproduction, including childbirth, maternal behavior, sexuality, and menopause. Her primary publications include works on the evolution of childbirth and evolutionary medicine. Her recent books include ANCIENT BODIES, MODERN LIVES: HOW EVOLUTION HAS SHAPED WOMEN'S HEALTH (2010, Oxford University Press) and COSTLY AND CUTE: HELPLESS INFANTS AND HUMAN EVOLUTION (2016, SAR/UNM Press). She is also the Editor in Chief of the INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, which will be published by John Wiley and Sons in 2018. She has taught courses in physical anthropology, nutritional anthropology, medical anthropology, evolutionary medicine, and anthropology of reproduction.
Russell L. Ciochon is a leading paleoanthropologist specializing in primate and human evolution in Asia, as well as the geochronology of Asian Plio-Pleistocene sites. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and teaches at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, where he is Chair of the Department of Anthropology. He teaches courses in hominin and non-human primate evolution, as well as primate behavior, ecology, and functional anatomy. Besides co-authoring more than one hundred technical articles, he has also co-written two popular books: DRAGON BONE HILL: AN ICE AGE SAGA OF HOMO ERECTUS (2004, Oxford University Press) and OTHER ORIGINS: THE SEARCH FOR THE GIANT APE IN PREHISTORY (1990, Bantam Books).
