Frank L'Engle Williams
Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts - Amherst, 2001
Research Interests: Biological Anthropology, Human Evolution, Primates, Ontogeny, Growth Models, Craniofacial Biology
Frank L'Engle Williams received his B.A. from the University of Florida, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Before coming to Georgia State, he was a post-doctoral researcher at Pennsylvania State University where he investigated the effects of various craniofacial disorders on the mandible using Computed Tomographic scans and image analysis.
Dr. Williams is interested in applying a developmental perspective to the recent human fossil record. He seeks to understand the role of juvenilization, or neoteny, in human evolution by comparing the growth signal obtained from infant, juvenile and adult Neandertal fossils to those acquired from modern human, chimpanzee and bonobo skulls. He recently spear-headed research into examining how Plio-Pleistocene southern African climate change may have driven developmental perturbations, and thus evolutionary change, in australopithecines (Australopithecus africanus and A. robustus) and cercopithecoids (Parapapio, Papio, Dinopithecus, Simopithecus and Gorgopithecus). Dr. Williams has also explored the scaling relationship between primate anatomical structures, body size and specific locomotor repertoires. Fluent in Dutch (from his ethnographic fieldwork on environmental issues in the Netherlands), he recently translated an anatomical description of Perodicticus potto (a prosimian) from 19th century Dutch to English. His published articles and abstracts can be found in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Journal of Human Evolution, Current Anthropology, Clinical Anatomy, Journal of Environment and Development and Practicing Anthropology. His most recently published book chapters appear in Patterns of Growth and Development in the Genus Homo (eds. Thompson et al., 2003), Human Evolution through Developmental Change (eds. Minugh-Purvis and McNamara, 2002) and Neanderthals on the Edge (eds. Stringer et al., 2000).
