Dr.Karen Baab, Ph.D.

Dr. Baab is a trained paleoanthropologist whose research interests are centered on the evolution of the skull in Plio-Pleistocene hominins, with a particular focus on early Homo , including Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis . She takes a multi-faceted approach to exploring the systematics of Pleistocene Homo species which includes assessing the magnitude and patterning of neurocranial shape using 3D geometric morphometrics, exloring the underlying etiology of cranial robusticity using modern humans as a model, and modeling neurocranial ontogeny in extinct hominins. She has recently turned to the application of quantitative genetic models to better understand the evolutionary dynamics of human ancestors. Her work has appeared in scientific journals including PNAS, the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and the Journal of Human Evolution and has been featured in the New York Times.

She has active collaborations with researchers both here at Midwestern University (Tobias Riede, Physiology) and elsewhere (United States, Canada, Germany, Spain). Her lab is currently funded by an NSF grant to explore signals of natural selection related to chewing biomechanics in the skull of Plio-Pleistocene hominins.

Research Topics:
Biological anthropology
Geometric morphometrics
Skull variation and evolution
Human evolution
Homo erectus
Homo floresiensis
Development of the skull