Dr. Ashley S. Hammond will lead the Research Group on the Origin of Hominins. Her research focuses on the evolution of the human lineage (hominins) and closely related primate species. The group will place special emphasis on characterising postcranial morphology in fossils of African anthropoids and hominins, investigating the evolution of biological form and function, locomotor adaptations, life history, and behaviour. To conduct these studies, they will use advanced techniques such as computed tomography (CT) imaging, geometric morphometrics, dissections, and in vivo studies, combined with fieldwork at key localities for human evolution.
Hammond joins the ICP after serving as curator and chair of the Anthropology Division at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where she also taught at the Richard Gilder Graduate School and at City University of New York. Her career combines fieldwork in eastern Africa with the application of advanced 3D techniques to study hip joint mobility and the evolution of locomotor capacities in hominoids, and she has led several projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation on the evolution of early hominins. More information about her career can be found here.
Meanwhile, Dr. Sergio Almécija will head the Research Group in Evolutionary Phenomics. This group adopts a global view of evolution, focusing primarily on humans and other primates, while extending its scope to other mammals and vertebrates. Their research combines fossil evidence with large-scale evolutionary biology of extant species. Observable traits such as morphology and behaviour (for example, locomotion) will be studied using high-dimensional phenotypic data, including 3D geometric morphometrics and motion capture techniques, integrating this information with genomic data and evolutionary models. Almécija will also serve as head of the Research Area in Evolutionary Paleobiology.
Almécija is a paleoanthropologist and has been a Senior Research Scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a former professor at George Washington University. He has maintained a long-standing link with the ICP, where he completed his PhD and has been an associate researcher since 2010. His research focuses on the evolution of great apes and early hominins based on postcranial anatomy and large 3D datasets, with notable contributions to journals such as Science, Nature Communications and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, as well as in the editing of the outreach volume “Humans: Perspectives on Our Evolution from World Experts”. More information about his career can be found here.
About the ICREA programme
The Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) is a foundation created in 2001 by the Government of Catalonia with the aim of boosting the Catalan research system through the recruitment of top-level international scientific and academic personnel. The ICREA programme offers permanent contracts to attract and retain researchers with exceptional talent and proven leadership capacity, enabling them to develop their research lines in universities and research centres across Catalonia. Thanks to this model based exclusively on excellence, ICREA has become a key driver in positioning Catalan science at the global forefront.
Main image: Dr. Ashley S. Hammond (left) and Dr. Sergio Almécija (right). Original image S. Almécija: © ICREA/Frederic Camallonga
