Philipp Gunz, Ph.D. was employed as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network). He is a physical anthropologist developing software to deal with taphonomic distortions and estimate missing parts of incomplete fossil crania using reference-based geometric and statistical methods.

In the course of his Ph.D. thesis he worked on the theoretical basis that underlies such formalized reconstructions, programmed the necessary software and successfully applied it to semilandmark data gathered from CT scans of South African australopithecines as well as surface data collected with a 3D digitizer.

Priscilla Bayle, Ph.D. student was employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network). She is a PhD student working on dental development patterns in the genus Homo, and particularly in Neanderthals and modern humans under the scientific co-direction of Roberto Macchiarelli and José Braga.

The hypothesis of modularity in dental development can serve as a basis for identifying and studying patterns of dental growth. In this framework, she looks for quantitative indicators for dental development from (µ)-CT scans. Priscilla Bayle is also working on NESPOS (Neanderthal Studies Professional Online Service), and particularly on data about French Mousterian excavations.

Stanislav Katina, Ph.D. was employed as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network). He is a biostatistician and his research covers theoretical fields as Shape Analysis, Nonparametric Regression, Halfspace Location and Regression Depth, Permutation Tests, Multivariate Statistical Analysis, Computer Statistics and Data Analysis and applied fields as Zoology, Physical and Clinical Anthropology and Electrocardiology.

He is also developing software to deal with Shape Analysis, Multivariate Statistical Analysis and Spatial Statistics especially in S-PLUS and R. In the course of his Ph.D. thesis he worked on the Penalized Nonparametric Regression Models with Total Variation Penalty in Image Warping.

Luca Fiorenza, Ph. D. student I was a PhD student working on occlusion and function of hominid teeth, studying the wear patterns in Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens by 3-D analysis.

It is hypothesised that differences in the daily diet of Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis should be mirrored in differences of tooth use and the resulting wear pattern. Study of the occlusal area of molars derived from high resolution surface scans are used to quantify and compare wear pattern of the two hominids.
Modern functional models of jaw movement are employed in order to examine possible differences in tooth wear patterns.

Nandini Singh, Ph.D. student I was a PhD student at the department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. The focus of my research is on the integrative aspects of the evolution and development of the primate cranium. This work is co-supervised by Dr. Katerina Harvati and Professor Jean-Jacques Hublin.

One of the objectives of conducting work in this area is to examine the underlying mechanisms that contribute to cranial variation and co-variation patterns in extinct and extant hominoids. Using 3D geometric morphometrics, this study proposes to examine the developmental origin of cranial integration and modularity in human and non-human primates. Such studies can be further used to assess character independence in a phylogenetic context. Delimiting modules and identifying patterns of integration is imperative for understanding the development and evolution of complex morphological structures.

Simon Neubauer, Ph.D. student I was employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network) at the Department of Human Evolution of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. For my PhD project, I am working on endocranial form changes during hominoid ontogeny to learn about brain development

Humans give birth to offspring with relatively small brains. The fetal pattern of brain growth continues after birth in contrast to most other primates in which brain growth slows down rapidly after birth. Using CT scans and 3D landmark data, including semilandmarks on curves and surfaces, for geometric morphometric analyses, I investigate endocranial form (shape and size) changes in ontogenetic series of humans and chimpanzees and compare the ontogenetic trajectories. To learn about evolutionary changes of ontogenetic patterns, fossil hominids will be included in the analysis.

Oualid Ben Ali, Ph.D. Dr. Oualid Ben Ali obtained a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Laval University (Quebec) (supervised by Bernard Moulin since 2001). He is mainly interested in using multiagent systems to simulate behaviors and phenomena in 2D-3D geographic virtual spatial envirnoments. He is working on a project whose goal is to simulate shopping behavior in shopping malls using geosimulation and multi-agent systems.

He received a 2 years - MARIE-CURIE scholarship to work in the Hull York Medical School (York, UK) and in the Hull Immersive Virtual Environment (HIVE) (Hull, UK) as an EVAN post-doctoral fellow. He lead the development of an innovative 3D visualization-based software tools in the field of the geometric morphometrics (GMM). Modern functional models of jaw movement are employed in order to examine possible differences in tooth wear patterns.

Markus Bastir, Ph.D. Markus Bastir was employed as a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow (EVAN training network) at the Department of Paleobiology of the Museo Nationale de Ciencias Naturales. His research involves geometric morphometrics and virtual anthropological applications in the study of the evolution and development in the human craniofacial system in Pleistocene hominids.

I am interested in questions of cranofacial biology within the context of human evolution. In this project 3D geometric morphometrics and 3D reconstructions of recent and fossil skulls will be used to analyze morphological interactions between the brain, the basicranium and the face. As a second aim of this project we want to combine geometric morphometrics and paleo-histological data in order to investigate the evolution of growth mechanisms underlying morphological variation.

Alexandre Bourdeu, Ph.D. student I was employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network) at Breuckmann GmbH in Meersburg, Germany. I am currently working on the design of an application dedicated to the digitization of human face and body.

I am involved in image processing and software development applied to geometric morphometrics. The objective of my work is to integrate tools aimed at the inspection and measurement of biological data in a 3D surface digitizer based on a fringe projection process. The software will deal with the definition and handling of landmarks and semi-landmarks on 3D biological data, the development of morphing functions, the treatment of missing data in 3D scans by the means of templates, and the automatic measurement of biometrical data. The measurements obtained by these means will provide statistical analyses of sample data.

He is specifically interested in micro-evolutionary processes which led to the development of recent patterns of human craniofacial variation. In his Ph. D. research, he focused on a 3-dimensional analysis of craniofacial variation in a large, temporally stratified sample of Holocene Khoesan crania from South Africa.

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Sascha Senck, Ph.D. student I am currently employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network) at the Department of Anthropology in Vienna, Austria. My studies are including the morphometric analysis of crania, mandibles and teeth of Australopithecines, early modern humans and extant hominoids.

The topics of my research will deal with the anatomical and reference-based (geometrical and statistical) virtual reconstruction of fossils, including questions of growth and development of the hominoid skulls. Using the toolkit of Virtual Anthropology (VA) and Geometric Morphometrics (GMM) these questions aim to examine the variation of developmental growth patterns and the cranial modularity in hominoids. Combining these methods with paleoecological and socioecological findings, this is an effort to reconstruct some aspects of human evolution.

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Michael Coquerelle, Ph.D. student Michael Coquerelle is currently employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network). He is a PhD student working on growth and developmental patterns in primate mandibles. This work is supervised by José Braga, G.W. Weber and Demetrios Halazonetis. Using CT scans and 3D landmark data, including semilandmarks on curves and surfaces, I study shape and form variation of subadult and adult mandibles among extant hominoids in order to analyze the patterns of allometric changes and sexual dimorphism during ontogeny. Also, I would like to include information on the location of the erupted teeth as well as the developing teeth and relate this information to mandibular shape and form changes in juvenile Homo and Pan. The main purpose is to reveal constraints of mandible caused by the developing lower dentition and the impact on sexual dimorphism.
Valdis Gudmundsdottir, Ph.D. student Valdis Gudmundsdottir PhD Student is currently employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network). She is a PhD student working on the applications of paleoanthropological methods for the study of the human cortex under the scientific direction of Jean-Francois Mangin. The objective of her thesis is the transfer of morphometric methods from paleo-anthropology towards neuroimaging. In paleo-anthropology, rather than warping brains with registration algorithms, the alignment is driven by manual landmarks. The host institution, Neurospin, provides a database of 1000 different brains whose cortical sulci have been automatically recognized and which she will use as landmarks for the methods of paleo-anthropology. They will be used during the thesis to tackle early diagnosis of psychiatric syndroms.
Imen Elhechmi, Ph.D. student Imen Elchechmi, Ph.D. student is currently employed as a Marie Curie doctoral fellw (EVAN Training network). The aim of her work is the development of biometric tools.   It is well known that current methods in biometry are not reliable enough. Therefore this work consists in the improvement of current methods of age (juveniles and adults) estimation in extant humans and in the development of a new biometric approach (based on dental growth increments and changes in dental tissues due to cementum and dentine apposition). Ph.D. Supervisors: Prof. Tijani Gharbi and Prof. José Braga.
Filipe Miguel Maria Marreiros, Ph.D. I am currently employed a s Marie Curie doctoral fellow (EVAN Training Network) at the Department of Radiology of the Medical University Innsbruck, Austria. I am working on the developing software to design custom implants for large bone defects in craniofacial surgery.

Stefano Benazzi Ph.D. I was employed as a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow (EVAN training network) at Department of Palaeoanthropology and Messel Research, Senckenberg Research Institute. I'm a physical anthropologist working on the process automation of occlusal fingerprint analysis on hominid teeth for the reconstruction of evolutionary development of teeth and the interpretation of the dependency of morphology, biomechanics and environment.

Helgi Petur Gunnarsson, Ph.D. student  am a Marie Curie Early Stage Reseacher Fellow at the University of Hull. We are designing and developing an open source toolbox to support the analysis and visualization of skeletal structures in anthropology.
Youssef Shady George-Nashed, Ph.D. student   obtained my MSc degree in Computer Games Programming at the University of Hull in Sep. 2008, with a dissertation concerning machine learning and its aplicability to video games.  I am employed as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher (ESR) under the EVAN training network project. I am part of the team in the computer science department that is responsible of designing and implementing the open-source software package that we hope will be the standard software used by academics and students in the field of 3D geometric morphometrics. My research areas include 3D visualization, data flow paradigms, parallel algorithms and concurrency, and artificial intelligence. Caroline Souday, Ph.D.
Cinzia Fornai, Ph.D. student   Cinzia Fornai focuses her research on the study of the dental morphology of South African hominid with particular interest to the matter of the hypothesis of the occurrence of a second australopithecine species at Sterkfontein Member 4. She performed a MSc through the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg under the supervision of Professor R. J. Clarke and is currently working on a PhD project.

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