Dan Lieberman, Evolutionary Biologist at Harvard

Today, my guest is Dan Lieberman, a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University, where he is the Edwin M Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences, and Chair of the the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. Prior to joining Harvard in 2001, he taught at Rutgers University and the George Washington University. Dan’s research centers on why does the human body look and function the way it does and his view is that it requires an evolutionary perspective because nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. 

As Dan puts it, “an evolutionary approach to human anatomy and physiology not only helps us to understand better why humans are the way they are, but also helps provide key insights on how to prevent many kinds of illnesses and injuries.”

Dan is the Director of the Skeletal Biology Laboratory at Harvard, on the curatorial board of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, a member of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, and the Scientific Executive Committee of the The Leakey Foundation. Dan received his BA, MA and PhD all from Harvard University as well as an M.Phil from Cambridge University.