Rate My Professor Susan Antón

Susan C. Antón is the Julius Silver, Roslyn S. Silver, and Enid Silver Winslow Professor of Anthropology at New York University, where she serves as Vice Dean for Inclusive Excellence, Divisional Dean at Large, and Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Center for the Study of Human Origins. A biological anthropologist, her research centers on physical anthropology, skeletal biology, the evolution of genus Homo, human dispersal from Africa, evolutionary morphology, human osteology and anatomy, growth, development, and life history patterns. She has conducted fieldwork in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific, contributing to understandings of human evolutionary adaptations over the past 2.5 million years through analysis of skeletal and fossil evidence.

Antón earned her BA in Anthropology summa cum laude (1987), MA (1991), and PhD (1994) from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined NYU in 2003 as associate professor, advancing to full professor in 2011. Prior positions include associate professor at Rutgers University (2003), assistant professor at Rutgers (2001-2003), and assistant professor at the University of Florida (1994-2000). She founded and directed NYU's MS program in Human Skeletal Biology from 2003 to 2019 and served as Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science in 2020. Antón held leadership roles as President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Vice President and Scientific Program Chair of AAPA, Joint Editor of the Journal of Human Evolution (2005-2010), and founder and co-chair of the AAPA Committee on Diversity. Her key publications include co-editing Human Biology and the Origin of Homo (Current Anthropology, 2012), articles such as 'Evolution of Early Homo: An integrated biological perspective' (Science, 2014), 'New fossils from Koobi Fora in northern Kenya confirm taxonomic diversity in early Homo' (Nature, 2012), and textbooks like Biological Anthropology: The Natural History of Humankind (multiple editions, latest 2021). Awards and honors encompass election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2008), AAPA Gabriel W. Lasker Lifetime Distinguished Service Award, NYU Distinguished Teaching Medal, and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral and Dissertation Year Fellowships. Her contributions have shaped biological anthropology, early human evolution studies, and equity initiatives in academia.