Kaye Reed
Associate Professor
Associate Director, School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Ph.D., Physical Anthropology, State University of New York, Stony Brook
SHESC Themes: Human Origins, Culture and Diversity; Societies and their Natural Environments
Field Specializations: Ecology, Paleoecology, Physical Anthropology
Regional Focus: Africa (East)
Contact: Kaye Reed, SS 218E
Research:
Kaye Reed has a primary research interest in evolutionary paleoecology and the ecological context of evolution. The identification and analyses of mammalian fauna from Plio-Pleistocene hominid localities provides the framework for studying the evolution of both hominids and other primates.
Reed's current paleontological and paleoecological research is focused in Hadar, Ethiopia, Eritrea and South Africa. She also works on comparing the structure of extant primate communities on three continents and Madagascar. Reed is a research associate with the Institute of Human Origins.
Teaching:
Reed teaches courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Undergraduate courses include Fossil Primates; Paleoecology; and Stones, Bones and Human Evolution. Graduate courses consist of Zooarchaeology and Paleoecology I, Primate Paleobiology, Anatomy & Biomechanics, Primate Communities and Ecology and Human Evolution. Reed also serves as a committee member and chair in the graduate program and as a mentor in the undergraduate program.
Select Publications:
Reed, K. E. (in press). Paleoecological patterns at the Hadar hominin site, Afar Regional State, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Evolution.
Reed, K. E. & Rector, A. L. (2007). African Pliocene paleoecology: Hominin habitats, resources and diets. In P. Ungar (Ed.), Early hominin diets: The known, the unknown, and the unknowable. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Herries, A. I. R., Reed, K. E., Kuykendall, K. L. & Latham, A. G. (2006). Speleology and magnetobiostratigraphic chronology of the Buffalo Cave fossil site, Makapansgat, South Africa. Quaternary Research, 66, 233-245.
Reed, K. E. & Fish, J. L. (2005). Tropical and temperate seasonal influences on human evolution. In D. K. Brockman & C. P. van Schaik (Eds.), Seasonality in primates: Studies of living and extinct human and non-human primates (pp. 491-520). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reed, K. E. (2002). The use of paleocommunity and taphonomic studies in reconstructing primate behavior. In Plavcan, M. J., Kay, R., van Schaik, C. & Jungers, W. L. Reconstructing Primate Behavior in the Fossil Record (pp. 217-259). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press.
Reed, K. E. (1998). Using large mammal communities to examine ecological and taxonomic organization and predict vegetation in extant and extinct assemblages. Paleobiology. 24, 384-408.
Reed, K. E. (1997). Early hominid evolution and ecological change through the African Plio-Pleistocene. Journal of Human Evolution, 32, 289-322.