Helen Frances James (born May 22, 1956) is an American paleontologist and paleornithologist who has published extensively on the fossil birds of the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

. She is the curator in charge of birds in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Early life

James was born in a U.S. Army hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas on May 22, 1956, to two ecologists. She was brought up on a farm at the base of Kessler Mountain near Fayetteville, in the Arkansas Ozarks. At age eight, her family moved up slope to a custom-built house in the woods, where she developed an interest in natural history and archaeology. James' parents encouraged an appreciation for nature in her and her sisters, taking them on trips within the Ozarks, to the American southwest, and to Mexico. James found some Amerindian artifacts on these excursions, leading her to join the Northwest Arkansas Archaeological Association at age twelve. At age 14, her father accepted a one-year Fulbright Fellowship, and the family moved to Cape Coast, Ghana.

Education

On returning from Ghana, at the age of 16, James attended the University of Arkansas, where her mentors included

Michael P. Hoffman Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...

. She graduated in 1977 after studying archaeology and biological anthropology. During her studies, James was a summer volunteer in the Paleobiology Department of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. She also researched Amerindian skeletons in the museum's Physical Anthropology section and worked on the anatomy and

systematics Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic tre ...

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...

s with Richard Zusi.

Career

Following graduation, James continued to work on hummingbirds with Zusi. When his grant ran out, she accepted a position helping Storrs Olson identify fossil birds from the

. The study of Hawaii's fossil birds, of which there were an abundance of undescribed species, became a long-term collaborative research program for James and Olson. (They were married in 1981 but later divorced.) From the fossil record, they identified about 60 bird species of Hawaii that had become extinct. Through this research on Holocene fossil birds James showed that massive extinctions of birds had occurred following human colonization of the Hawaiian Islands. In 2000, James earned a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in zoology from the University of Oxford, with a dissertation on the comparative

osteology Osteology () is the scientific study of bones, practised by osteologists. A subdiscipline of anatomy, anthropology, and paleontology, osteology is the detailed study of the structure of bones, skeletal elements, teeth, microbone morphology, funct ...

and phylogeny of the Hawaiian finches (Drepanidini). She has also conducted research on the fossil vertebrates and paleoecology of Madagascar, the comparative osteology and phylogenetics of

perching birds A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

, and the evolution of island waterfowl. James was a founding member of the executive council of the

Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

and serves on the council of the American Institute of Biological Sciences as the member representative for the

American Ornithologists' Union The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its m ...

References

External links

James, Helen F. (Active)
Washington Biologists’ Field Club profile {{DEFAULTSORT:James, Helen Frances 1956 births Living people American paleontologists American ornithologists Women ornithologists American curators American women curators Women paleontologists Smithsonian Institution people 21st-century American women