The program in biological anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers graduate training that integrates diverse research areas toward the common goal of improving our understanding of human and nonhuman primate anatomy, adaptation, and evolution. The biological anthropology program includes ongoing research on immune function and response; reproductive ecology and physiology; primate social behavior; primate behavioral ecology, reproductive biology and human health; primate and human evolution; forensic anthropology; demography; quantitative genetics; ancient DNA; locomotor biomechanics in humans and nonhuman primates; functional anatomy; and paleoanthropology.
The biological anthropologists in the Department of Anthropology are actively involved in field research in Poland, the Philippines, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Uganda, and Primate Research Centers in San Antonio, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. Additional research is conducted on campus at our labs in Davenport Hall and the Medical Sciences Building, including the Malhi Molecular Anthropology Lab, the Laboratory for Evolutionary Endocrinology, the Evolutionary Immunology and Genomics Laboratory, the Evolutionary Biomechanics Laboratory, and the Environmental Isotope Paleobiogeochemistry lab.
The biological anthropologists are involved in many cross-disciplinary research collaborations across the UIUC campus. Several of our faculty are affiliated with other units, including the Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (PEEB), the Host-Microbe Systems Group in the Institute for Genomic Biology, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Center for African Studies, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the College of Medicine, and the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine. Most have research collaborations with other campus departments including Mechanical Engineering, Kinesiology, Geology, Computer Science, and the College of Education. We offer a wide range of graduate courses in our areas of specialty and also teach human gross anatomy in the College of Medicine. Our goal is to create an exciting and demanding academic environment that challenges doctoral students and prepares them to conduct outstanding research.