Tell us about your research in only three sentences:
I have broad training in biological anthropology. I seek to understand human evolution and adaptation by studying the morphology of present-day humans, past humans, close evolutionary relatives such as apes, and fossil evolutionary relatives of humans and apes. My research includes aspects of bioarchaeology, dental anthropology, forensic anthropology, primatology, and palaeoanthropology.
What are some achievements from the last few years you are really proud of?
I am proud to have supported a talented and motivated group of students working on various bioarchaeology projects that shed light on a little-known but historically significant region in the Republic of Georgia. I worked with a team using cutting-edge but ethical and non-invasive means to reconstruct the life story of an ancient Egyptian female found as a mummified head in the collections of the Anatomy department (link: here). I helped devise a system for scoring discretely occurring dental traits in great apes (link: here). This has strong application in understanding dental variation, taxonomy and phylogeny of fossil hominoids.
What is it that drew you to your research topic?
I undertook my postgraduate studies in an extremely rich and productive research environment. I was surrounded by biological anthropologists passionate about their research in primate behaviour and conservation, theoretical questions of speciation and species recognition, palaeontological research on fossil hominids, and bioarchaeology research on prehistoric humans. I partook of this smorgasbord as a research and teaching assistant and ultimately settled on my PhD research topic of dental palaeoanthropology when I found (with the help of my PhD supervisor) that there was an unfilled niche in studying dental variation in extant apes that would allow me to keep up my interest in all I learnt and at the same time make a lasting contribution to the discipline.
How do you stay passionate and focused on your goals as your career progresses?
I find it easier to stay focused as my career progresses because I am fortunate to have a job that depends on me fulfilling my research goals. In teaching anatomy to undergraduate students, working on research questions by myself or with my postgraduate students and communicating my research to the wider community I am constantly interacting with others and recalibrating my focus and career progression. It is challenging, but also fulfilling.
How do you balance work and social life and do you have any tips for achieving this?
I think I balance work and social life badly because I am constantly being told that I focus on my work too much! At the same time, I don’t think there is any one way to maintain balance. In hindsight I was fortunate to have given birth to my daughters while I was a postgraduate student. We went through challenging times logistically and financially and although that made me an early career academic later in life, I find that I able to maintain a better balance of work and social life now that my children are not so dependent on me.
Grant or job failures are commonplace in science. How do you deal with rejection and do you think there are ways as a scientific community we can help each other through this inevitable part of our work?
Grant and job failures are commonplace particularly in our discipline where there is a high ratio of applicants to jobs and grants. Dealing with funding rejection was part of my postgraduate training because I had to secure funding from major funding bodies before I could embark on my field research. It helped to draw on the experience of my supervisors to rework my rejections into new applications. Rejection is still difficult, but resilience triumphs. I feel strongly about the need to help each other on job and grant applications, particularly in a small research community like we have in Australia and New Zealand. I feel that the Australasian Society of Human Biology can play a strong fostering and mentoring role in ensuring that we continue our work and I would be supportive of formalizing those roles within the Society.
Are you actively involved in science communication? If so, what efforts do you pursue to get the public engaged with your science?
I never turn down an offer to speak about my research and my discipline. I speak in pubs, schools, museums, community-led interest groups and philanthropic organisations. I am happy to chat with the media – radio, TV, and magazines like Cosmos and New Scientist. Of course, it helps that our research is of enduring human interest and relevance and I get called on to provide expert opinion without having to pursue the media. I have a small presence in social media and use Linked-in, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to comment on issues of relevance.
My webpage: https://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person171920#tab-overview
Twitter: @vpilbrow1
I have broad training in biological anthropology. I seek to understand human evolution and adaptation by studying the morphology of present-day humans, past humans, close evolutionary relatives such as apes, and fossil evolutionary relatives of humans and apes. My research includes aspects of bioarchaeology, dental anthropology, forensic anthropology, primatology, and palaeoanthropology.
What are some achievements from the last few years you are really proud of?
I am proud to have supported a talented and motivated group of students working on various bioarchaeology projects that shed light on a little-known but historically significant region in the Republic of Georgia. I worked with a team using cutting-edge but ethical and non-invasive means to reconstruct the life story of an ancient Egyptian female found as a mummified head in the collections of the Anatomy department (link: here). I helped devise a system for scoring discretely occurring dental traits in great apes (link: here). This has strong application in understanding dental variation, taxonomy and phylogeny of fossil hominoids.
What is it that drew you to your research topic?
I undertook my postgraduate studies in an extremely rich and productive research environment. I was surrounded by biological anthropologists passionate about their research in primate behaviour and conservation, theoretical questions of speciation and species recognition, palaeontological research on fossil hominids, and bioarchaeology research on prehistoric humans. I partook of this smorgasbord as a research and teaching assistant and ultimately settled on my PhD research topic of dental palaeoanthropology when I found (with the help of my PhD supervisor) that there was an unfilled niche in studying dental variation in extant apes that would allow me to keep up my interest in all I learnt and at the same time make a lasting contribution to the discipline.
How do you stay passionate and focused on your goals as your career progresses?
I find it easier to stay focused as my career progresses because I am fortunate to have a job that depends on me fulfilling my research goals. In teaching anatomy to undergraduate students, working on research questions by myself or with my postgraduate students and communicating my research to the wider community I am constantly interacting with others and recalibrating my focus and career progression. It is challenging, but also fulfilling.
How do you balance work and social life and do you have any tips for achieving this?
I think I balance work and social life badly because I am constantly being told that I focus on my work too much! At the same time, I don’t think there is any one way to maintain balance. In hindsight I was fortunate to have given birth to my daughters while I was a postgraduate student. We went through challenging times logistically and financially and although that made me an early career academic later in life, I find that I able to maintain a better balance of work and social life now that my children are not so dependent on me.
Grant or job failures are commonplace in science. How do you deal with rejection and do you think there are ways as a scientific community we can help each other through this inevitable part of our work?
Grant and job failures are commonplace particularly in our discipline where there is a high ratio of applicants to jobs and grants. Dealing with funding rejection was part of my postgraduate training because I had to secure funding from major funding bodies before I could embark on my field research. It helped to draw on the experience of my supervisors to rework my rejections into new applications. Rejection is still difficult, but resilience triumphs. I feel strongly about the need to help each other on job and grant applications, particularly in a small research community like we have in Australia and New Zealand. I feel that the Australasian Society of Human Biology can play a strong fostering and mentoring role in ensuring that we continue our work and I would be supportive of formalizing those roles within the Society.
Are you actively involved in science communication? If so, what efforts do you pursue to get the public engaged with your science?
I never turn down an offer to speak about my research and my discipline. I speak in pubs, schools, museums, community-led interest groups and philanthropic organisations. I am happy to chat with the media – radio, TV, and magazines like Cosmos and New Scientist. Of course, it helps that our research is of enduring human interest and relevance and I get called on to provide expert opinion without having to pursue the media. I have a small presence in social media and use Linked-in, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to comment on issues of relevance.
My webpage: https://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person171920#tab-overview
Twitter: @vpilbrow1