Prof. Dr. Leslie Aiello
- Section Anatomy and Anthropology
- Election year 2011
Research
Leslie Aiello is the President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation of Anthropological Research, the largest private international foundation devoted to the support of broad-based anthropological research. Her academic interests focus on the evolution of human adaptation as well as on the broader issues of evolutionary theory, life history and the evolution of the brain and cognition.
Career
She received her B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California (Los Angeles, CA, USA) and her Ph.D. in human evolution and anatomy from the University of London (UK). She spent the majority of her 30-year academic career at University College London (UCL) where she was Professor of Biological Anthropology (1995 –2005), Head of the UCL Anthropology Department (1996 –2002), and Head of the UCL Graduate School (2002–2005). She also served as the co-managing editor of the Journal of Human Evolution (1993 –1999), has been the primary supervisor for 23 Ph.D. students, has published books and a number of articles in academic journals and has been active with the media in the public dissemination of science and particularly human evolution.