Bribiescas named J. Clayton Stephenson/Yale Class of 1954 Professor
Richard G. Bribiescas, a leading expert on human evolutionary biology whose work bridges the disciplines of anthropology and evolutionary biology, was recently appointed the J. Clayton Stephenson/Yale Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, effective immediately.
He is a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Anthropology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
A leading scholar whose work has been widely published in top academic journals, Bribiescas has conducted field research among the Ache people of Paraguay as well as populations in Venezuela, Japan, Ecuador, and the United States as well as various species of non-human primates. He is also the author of two books: “Men: Evolutionary and Life History” (Harvard University Press, 2006), a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary biology of human males, was awarded the 2007 Bronze Medal in the category of science by the Independent Book Publishers Association; and “How Men Age: What Evolution Reveals about Male Health and Mortality” (Princeton University Press, 2016), which won the W.W. Howells Prize for best book in biological anthropology from the American Anthropological Association.
In 2007, he was awarded the Medal of 600 Years Anniversary of the Restoration of the Krakow Academy by Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, for his research in human reproductive ecology. He is an elected fellow of the Human Biology Association and in 2018 was named an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 2022, he was elected as a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
A graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, Bribiescas holds an A.M. and Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Reproductive Endocrine Unit of Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the Yale faculty as an assistant professor of anthropology in 1998. In 2009 he was promoted to full professor. He previously served as chair of Yale’s Department of Anthropology and as vice provost for faculty development and diversity.
