Rate My Professor Luca Fiorenza

Luca Fiorenza serves as Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Palaeoanthropology at the University of New England, where he contributes as a key researcher to the Palaeoscience Research Centre. His research delves into human evolution by analyzing the skeletal fossil record to understand how Plio-Pleistocene climatic variations and dietary changes influenced the biology, morphology, and evolution of early hominin ancestors, including Australopithecus and Paranthropus species from East and South Africa. Fiorenza utilizes non-destructive digital methodologies such as Geometric Morphometrics for shape variation analysis, Virtual Reconstruction of fragmentary remains, Occlusal Fingerprint Analysis to quantify tooth wear patterns, and Finite Element Analysis for biomechanical modeling. He currently leads an Australian Research Council Discovery Project investigating whether Neanderthal cranial morphology adapted to cold habitats and high energy demands or arose from genetic drift.

Luca Fiorenza is also Associate Professor in Anatomy and Developmental Biology at Monash Universitys Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Head of the Palaeodiet Research Lab. His expertise lies in the functional morphology of the masticatory apparatus in humans and non-human primates and the critical role of diet in human evolution. He obtained his Bachelor/Master degree in Natural Sciences from La Sapienza University in Rome in 2003. Fiorenza has produced impactful publications in leading journals, such as Molar macrowear reveals Neanderthal eco-geographic dietary variation (PLoS ONE, 2011), Occlusal fingerprint analysis: Quantification of tooth wear pattern (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2009), To meat or not to meat? New perspectives on Neanderthal ecology (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2015), Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic (Scientific Reports, 2015), Computer simulations show that Neanderthal facial morphology represents adaptation to cold and high energy demands, but not heavy biting (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2018), and Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress (Nature, 2019). He has secured over $3.1 million AUD in funding, including four ARC Discovery Projects, and conducts workshops on cranio-dental functional morphology, digital anatomy, and biomechanics. Fiorenza was named a Leader in Anthropology (2020) and one of Australias Top Researchers (2025) by The Australian Research Magazine, underscoring his influence in biological anthropology.