| Peter S. Ungar, a professor of anthropology
in Fulbright College at the University of Arkansas, has been elected
to the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars. Ungar and
14 other esteemed scientists and clinicians were honored during
the society's 39th induction ceremony on Wednesday, May 21, and
again at the university's Commencement Ceremony on Thursday, May
22.
The Society of Scholars was created on the recommendation of then-president
Milton S. Eisenhower and approved by the university board of trustees
on May 1, 1967. The society—the first of its kind in the
nation — inducts former postdoctoral fellows, postdoctoral
degree recipients, house staff and junior or visiting faculty at
Johns Hopkins who have gained marked distinction in their fields
of physical, biological, medical, social, or engineering sciences
or in the humanities.
Ungar was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of cell biology
and anatomy from 1992 to 1993. He has already established himself
as one of the top physical anthropologists in the world. He has
done paleontological fieldwork on virtually every continent and
has also studied primate behavior and ecology in Central and South
America and Indonesia. Ungar's research efforts are focused on
an improved understanding of the behavior of our earliest ancestors.
To make this possible, he has pushed data analyses to new levels,
using techniques such as GIS analysis to plot fossil sites in 3D
and creating new technologies, including the combination of scanning
confocal microscopy and fractal analysis, to gain critical insights
into the origins and evolution of human diet. In the process, Ungar
has tested the assumptions underlying present-day fossil interpretations
and has revolutionized our understanding of the mechanisms of human
evolution.
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