Biological Anthropology

The New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP) is an integrated graduate training and research program in primate behavioral and evolutionary biology, funded by an NSF training grant. NYCEP involves faculty from the City University of New York, Columbia University, and New York University and selected staff of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). This unique consortium links a group of over thirty evolutionary biologists in New York City whose research focuses on human as well as nonhuman primates from the perspectives of morphology, paleontology, systematics, molecular and population genetics, behavior and ecology, and conservation biology.
 
Students in this program take courses in all these areas at the three universities, attend seminars that draw upon the staff of all five cooperating institutions, and have the opportunity to engage in original research in laboratories, museums, and in the field. The array of courses and research opportunities is far greater and more comprehensive than any one of the three participating degree granting institutions in New York City could otherwise offer, or than are available in any similar program. NSF funding has supported this unique program, which is widely acknowledged to be successful at attracting and training top-flight graduate students, and especially minorities and women. The collaboration among public and private universities and privately endowed (and publicly assisted) institutions dedicated to bringing the natural sciences to the general public is nationally unique and only possible in New York City where these institutions are all easily accessible.
 
Evolutionary primatology draws upon theory, method, and empirical data from other natural sciences, especially biology, anthropology, and geology. Collaboration among specialists with diverse research interests has proven extremely fruitful, especially in large-scale field projects. For example paleoanthropological research typically involves human and primate paleontologists, paleontologists specializing in other taxonomic groups, palynologists, taphonomists, archaeologists, sedimentary geologists, and geochronologists. Similarly, studies on natural primate populations may include geneticists, behaviorists, and conservationists. While it is rare for students to have the opportunity to experience all these disciplines during their graduate careers, NYCEP students are required to take coursework in all three. One of the distinct advantages of NYCEP is that the faculty are active in research that combines many of these areas of study, so that the value of adopting a multidisciplinary approach to scientific problems is introduced from the start of a student's graduate career. NYCEP itself has catalyzed new, collaborative research initiatives among faculty and students at the participating institutions.
 
NYCEP also offers the student a chance to apply this multidisciplinary training in the field before undertaking independent research. Faculty and associates have field research programs on living primates at sites in Africa, Asia, and South America, as well as primate (including human) paleontology in East Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Many courses are taught jointly by faculty members from two different institutions or departments. This teaching collaboration provides students with a variety of viewpoints early in their careers.