McPherson speaker to talk about early human ancestors

Contact: Nicholas Mercuro, coordinator, (517) 432-6978; or Gisgie D�vila Gendreau, University Relations, (517) 432-0924, gendrea3@msu.edu

10/22/2003

EAST LANSING, Mich. � A fossil hunter who has followed in her family�s footsteps will visit the Michigan State University campus as part of the M. Peter and Joanne M. McPherson Endowed Professorship for the Understanding of Science.

Louise Leakey, a paleoanthropologist and leader of an annual expedition to the Turkana Basin, will be on campus Oct. 29-30. She will present �Origins and Evolution: In Search of How We Became Human� at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, at the Wharton Center�s Pasant Theatre.

Like her parents, Richard and Meave Leakey, and her grandparents, Louis and Mary Leakey, Louise Leakey focuses her study on the evolution of early human ancestors. She reportedly first set foot on Africa�s Turkana Basin site when she was just two months old.

�Undergraduates are fascinated by what is called paleoanthropology, and it is rare that they will ever get an opportunity to meet someone who is conducting such research, let alone talk to a member of the Leakey family,� said Lynne Goldstein, chairperson of the anthropology department at MSU. �This visit by Louise Leakey will allow students to directly ask questions of the new generation of Leakey researchers, and find out what directions the search for our past will take in the future.�

In 2001, Leakey and a group of scientists led by Meave Leakey unearthed a 3.5 million-year-old skull and partial jaw believed to belong to a new branch of our early human family. She now leads the annual expeditions to the Turkana Basin with her mother. There she focuses her research on the influence of changing climate on the evolution of indigenous animals between 3.3 million and 1.6 million years ago.

She was recently named a National Geographic �explorer-in-residence,� and conducts research at the society�s Washington headquarters for a period of time each year.

During her visit to MSU, Leakey will also visit several classes and participate in discussions with groups of students and faculty.

Support for the McPherson Professorship program comes from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. The donor asked MSU President Peter McPherson to choose the direction of the professorship, and McPherson drew upon his extensive career in international relations and finance, and acted on a belief that knowledge of science is crucial to work in most disciplines and professions.

The program was inaugurated in fall 2000 with a seminar for undergraduate students hosted by five eminent visiting scholars.

Upcoming speakers include:

• Jeff Corwin, host and executive producer of Animal Planet�s �The Jeff Corwin Experience,� Nov. 18-19.
   
• Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health�s National Human Genome Research Institute, Jan. 27, 2004.
   
• Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies and president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, April 13-15, 2004.