Laura Godfrey Honored by the American Association of Biological Anthropologists

Laurie Godfrey, professor emerita in the department of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been honored with the 2024 Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA). She will be honored during the AABA’s 93rd annual meeting March 20-23 in Los Angeles.

Established in 1992, the award recognizes AABA senior members who have demonstrated a lifetime of contributions and commitment to biological anthropology through their scholarship, training, and service to the association.

Dr. Godfrey has conducted research in numerous areas, including primate evolution, paleobiology, functional morphology, evolutionary ecology, and extinction. Her expertise ranges widely, including studies of public understanding (and misunderstanding) of evolution, the relations between evolution, growth and development, and the impacts of humans and climate change on the vertebrates of Madagascar. Her most recent book is Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism (W.W. Norton, 2007).

Dr. Godfrey joined the anthropology faculty at the University of Massachusetts as an assistant professor in 1977 and was promoted to professor in 1991. She holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University.