We are delighted to welcome Dr Matt Tocheri as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow to the School of Anthropology and Conservation until December 2017. He is the Canada Research Chair in Human Origins at Lakehead University (Thunder Bay, Ontario) and a Research Associate in the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program (Washington, DC). His research focuses on the evolutionary history and functional morphology of the human and great ape family, with a special interest in Homo floresiensis, the so-called ‘hobbits’ of human evolution.
Dr Tocheri is collaborating with Dr Tracy Kivell and her team at her Animal Postcranial Evolution (APE) laboratory on several projects focused on the evolution and functional morphology of the human/great ape hand, especially as it relates to currently available fossil evidence of extinct human species (called hominins). Their collaborative research includes new studies of fossil hominin hand bones, including recently discovered specimens of Homo naledi and Homo floresiensis. He is also collaborating with Dr Matt Skinner on analyses of teeth recovered from recent excavations at Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia).