Dolores Rita Piperno (born 1949) is an American archaeologist specializing in archaeobotany. She is a senior scientist emeritus of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in

Balboa, Panama Balboa is a district of Panama City, located at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. History The town of Balboa, founded by the United States during the construction of the Panama Canal, was named after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the ...

and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington.

Early life and education

Piperno grew up in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

before her family moved to Pennsauken, N.J. Piperno earned a B.S. in Medical Technology (

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and wa ...

, 1971). After graduating, she began her career as a medical technician at the Hematology Research Center of Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia. She says she used this training and experience in this field when she moved into

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

. She then pursued an M.A. in

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

( Temple University, 1979), and a Ph.D. in Anthropology (Temple University, 1983).

Research and career

Dr. Piperno has worked extensively in the Amazon and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

. She has also worked in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Her research interests include the study of

phytolith Phytoliths (from Greek, "plant stone") are rigid, microscopic structures made of silica, found in some plant tissues and persisting after the decay of the plant. These plants take up silica from the soil, whereupon it is deposited within different ...

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets ...

grains, and

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophyt ...

at archaeological sites near the beginning of the domestication of various crops such as cucurbits, maize ( corn), and

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

s. She is well known for her groundbreaking work with Klaus Winter on the origin of corn which included the construction of a greenhouse which replicated ancient environmental conditions. She and her colleagues have also found evidence for the earliest popcorn. She has developed some of the procedures commonly used in phytolith studies in archaeology and is one of the pioneers in the archaeological study of starch grains. She has built up a reference collection of over 400 species. Piperno has also studied plant remains in Neanderthal teeth calculus to reconstruct ancient diets.

Honors and awards

In 2005 Piperno was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. The Republic of Panama awarded her with the Orden de Vasco Nuñez de Balboa in 2006. In 2009 Piperno received the Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology from the Archaeological Institute of America. In 2011 Piperno received the National Museum of Natural History Science Achievement Award.

Personal life

Piperno has a daughter named Jenny and enjoys playing golf, reading history books, and gardening.

Selected publications

* * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Piperno, Dolores Living people American archaeologists Rutgers University alumni Temple University alumni Smithsonian Institution people American women archaeologists Archaeobotanists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 1949 births