Amy Rector kicks off the Anthropology Speaker's Series with a talk about her work in the Ledi-Geraru Research Project area, Ethiopia, where she helped recover new hominin fossils that reshape our interpretation of human evolution.

Dr. Rector has been a member of the anthropology faculty at VCU since 2011. Her primary research includes reconstructing paleoecological contexts for early human evolution in eastern and southern Africa, as well as identifying and analyzing fossil mammal communities to characterize their biogeographic and ecological affinities through space and time. Working with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State, Dr. Rector has been involved in field work across Africa and currently directs the Ledi-Geraru Research Project in the Afar Region, Ethiopia. Her recent work describing a new species of human ancestor was published in Nature.