John Rowan (Lab PI)
Assistant Professor in Human Evolution
Director of the Duckworth Collections
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
I received a PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology from Arizona State University in affiliation with the Institute of Human Origins. My research focuses on the discovery and analysis of fossil apes and hominins and their associated faunal and palaeoecological context in eastern Africa. I direct the Lothagam Research Project (West Turkana, Kenya) and conduct field and lab work on other sites throughout Ethiopia and Kenya in collaboration with the Hadar Research Project, Ledi-Geraru Research Project, Lake Victoria Prehistory Project, Napudet Research Project, Omo Group Research Expedition, West Turkana Paleo Project, and Woranso-Mille Paleoanthropological Research Project, among others.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Alex Norwood
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow
Alex will be joining the lab in 2027 to work on projects linking dental development and stable isotope methods in mammals to reconstruct past climate and environments. She completed her PhD in Biological Anthropology at the University of Michigan in 2024. From 2024-2026 she was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow and is currently a Donnelley Fellow at the Institute for Biospheric Studies at Yale University.
PhD Students
Eve Omondi
PhD Student, Anthropology
Eve joined the lab in Fall 2022 after completing her BS in Zoology from Maasai Mara University. Her PhD work focuses on the analysis of Late Miocene faunas from eastern Africa. Her studies are supported by a Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellowship. Adam Gordon serves as Eve's co-advisor at UAlbany.
Christianne Ormsby
PhD Student, Anthropology
Christianne joined the lab in Fall 2021 after completing her MSc in Geosciences at East Tennessee State University. Her PhD work focuses on convergent evolution of arboreal morphologies in primate and non-primate mammals using 3D geometric morphometrics and phylogenetic comparative methods. Adam Gordon serves as Christianne's co-advisor at UAlbany.
MPhil Students
Emily Bradley
MPhil Student, Biological Anthropological Science
Emily joined the lab in 2025 as a Cambridge Biological Anthropology undergraduate to work on hominin postcrania from Koobi Fora, Kenya, as part of her dissertation. In fall 2026, she started her MPhil research on the forelimb anatomy of extant apes and fossil hominins using 3D approaches and is analysing newly discovered hominin fossils from Kenya.
Jorge Cañas Martínez
MPhil Student, Human Evolutionary Studies
Jorge joined the lab in 2026 after completing his BA in Archaeology at the Complutense University of Madrid. He has conducted archaeological research across Spain and published on their zooarchaeological assemblages. His MPhil research focuses on Pleistocene hominin behaviour and palaeoecology in Africa and is supported by the la Caixa Foundation.
Naia Cookson
MPhil Student, Human Evolutionary Studies
Naia joined the lab in 2026 after completing her BA in Anthropology at the University of Georgia. She was a research assistant at the Field Museum (Chicago) where she studied and published on Permian gorgonopsians from South Africa. Her MPhil research focuses on outstanding issues of taxonomy and systematics in hominin evolution and the generation of new character matrices for assessing hominin phylogeny.
Theo Lin
MPhil Student, Biological Anthropological Science
Theo joined the lab in 2026 after completing his BS in Anthropology and Human Biology at Emory University. He previously worked in East Turkana (Kenya) with the Koobi Fora Field School. His MPhil research focuses on the palaeoecological conditions surrounding hominin dispersals out of Africa during the Early Pleistocene and has interests spanning hominin macroecology and biogeography, hominin-carnivoran symbiosis, and quantitative methods.
Maya Schwingel
MPhil Student, Human Evolutionary Studies
Maya joined the lab in 2026 after completing a dual BA in Biology and Anthropology at Kenyon College. In 2023 she was an NSF REU researcher at the American Museum of Natural History (New York) conducting a microCT-based analysis of Mesozoic reptiles and amphibians. Her MPhil research investigates the palaeoecology of Plio-Pleistocene hominins.
Undergraduate Students
