Oakes Faculty Fellows
The Oakes College faculty represents a wealth of expertise from the natural sciences to the humanities, and we are proud to have some of the top scholars in the world among our faculty. Our students major in nearly every discipline at UCSC—from economics and computer science, to theater arts and Latin American and Latino studies—and they are well supported by the depth and breadth of the Oakes College faculty and the extensive knowledge of our advising team.
TBA is Oakes's faculty chair!
The Chair of the Faculty is an Academic Senate member, other than the Provost, who is elected by the college Faculty to serve a two year term, and will serve as a member of the Executive Committee.
- Title
- Research Professor
- Professor Emerita
- Division Social Sciences Division
- Department
- Anthropology Department
- Phone 831-459-4467
- Office Location
- 355 Social Sciences 1
- Mail Stop Social Sciences 1 Faculty Services
Summary of Expertise
Africa (Kenya, Uganda, South Africa) and Europe.
Research Interests
Comparative functional anatomy and locomotion of apes and humans; skeletal biology of apes; growth and development in catarrhine primates; sex differences in anatomy and behavior.
Biography, Education and Training
B.A., University of Colorado
Ph.D.,University of California, Berkeley
Academic Interests: Physical anthropology, primate and human evolution, comparative functional anatomy, sex and gender, life history and evolutionary theory, and history of human evolutionary studies.
Current research: Skeletal biology of wild chimpanzees; growth and development of apes and hominids; locomotor anatomy of langur monkeys; evolution of hominid bipedality.
Professor Zihlman’s research focuses around questions of the course of primate evolution, human origins and evolution, in the wider context of adaptation and evolutionary processes. To address these questions she carries out research on comparative anatomy of monkeys, apes and humans. Her goal is to document and explain variation due to age and sex and correlate anatomy with behavior, so as to provide a basis for understanding and reconstructing primate and human evolution.
Her current laboratory projects include vervet monkey, gorilla and chimpanzee growth, and comparative morphology of orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Selected Exhibitions
- 2006 - D.R. Bolter and A.L. Zihlman. "Primate growth and development. A functional and evolutionary approach." Invited paper for Primates in Perspective, S. Bearder, C. Campbell, A. Fuentes, K. McKinnon, editors. Oxford University Press.
- 2004 - A.L. Zihlman, D.R. Bolter, and C. Boesch. "Wild chimpanzee dentition and its implications for assessing life history in immature hominin fossils." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101(29): 10541-43.
- 2004 - A.L. Zihlman and D.R. Bolter. "Mammalian and primate roots of human sociality." In: Origin and Evolution of Sociality. R. Sussman and A. Chapman, editors. 23-52. Aldine de Gruyter. New York.
- 2003 - D.R. Bolter and A.L. Zihlman. "Morphometric analysis of growth and development in wild-collected vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) with implications for growth patterns across Old World monkeys, apes, and humans. Journal of Zoology. London. 260: 99-110.
- 2000 - A.L. Zihlman. The Human Evolution Coloring Book. 2nd edition. Completely revised and updated. HarperCollins, New York.
- 2000 - A.L.Zihlman and R.K.McFarland. "Body mass in lowland gorillas: a quantitative analysis." American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 113: 61-78.
Teaching Interests
Physical anthropology, primate and human evolution, comparative functional anatomy, sex and gender, life history and evolutionary theory, and history of human evolutionary studies.