I love traveling to new places to meet people and talk about uncovering human origins. Some highlights of my recent events and appearances.
Expedition Unknown, March 2020
I hosted Discovery Channel presenter Josh Gates in my laboratory in Madison to chat about the fossil evidence of human origins. Then, I joined him remotely from South Africa. This 2-part episode, which also visited my friend Charles Musiba at Laetoli, Tanzania and Dominic Stratford at Sterkfontein, gave a neat chance to bring some recent discoveries to viewers around the U.S.
CARTA symposium, February 2020
Before the pandemic hit, I traveled to San Diego to be part of a symposium for CARTA, an academic center at UC–San Diego. The focus of the event was Exploring the Origins of Today’s Humans. My presentation gave an update on our South African research in the Rising Star cave system, and the place of Homo naledi in our origins.
Clemson University, September 2019
It was great to visit the Clemson University community, talking about how new discoveries across Africa are changing our view of modern human origins.
American Society of Human Genetics, October 2018
In 2018, I was invited to organize the Presidential Symposium at the American Society of Human Genetics. This was a wonderful event devoted to African genetics and prehistory, with featured speakers Ambroise Wonkam from the University of Cape Town and Himla Soodyall of the University of the Witwatersrand. It was inspiring to bring new research across the spectrum of genetics and archaeology to this audience of more than 5000 human geneticists. My address at the symposium focused on the interaction of new discoveries in the fossil and archaeological records with new DNA research on living and ancient people.