Katerina CHarvati

Katerina Harvati is a paleoanthropologist specializing in Neanderthal evolution and the origins of modern humans. She studied at Columbia University, the City University of New York, and the American Museum of Natural History. Before joining the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in 2004, she worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at New York University. She is also an adjunct professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research includes evolutionary theory, the relationship between morphological diversity and environmental factors, and the evolution of primates in relation to human biological history. Currently, she conducts field research in Africa and Europe, including Greece. Harvati's analysis and that of her research team on a late Pleistocene human skull found in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa was recognized by Time magazine as one of the top ten scientific discoveries of 2007. It revealed "the first fossil evidence that modern humans left Africa between five and twenty-five thousand years ago."