Richard Jay Smith, an American anthropologist, (born 1948) is Ralph E. Morrow Distinguished Professor of Physical Anthropology at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. He is now Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Education

Richard Jay Smith, hailing from Brooklyn, New York, graduated from

Samuel J. Tilden High School Samuel J. Tilden High School is a New York City public high school in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City. It was named for Samuel J. Tilden, the former governor of New York State and presidential candidate who, although carryin ...

in that borough in 1965 and spent his undergraduate years at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1969. He went on to

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

to earn a M.S. in Anatomy as well as a DMD. After Tufts, he studied at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

where he earned a master's degree in philosophy in 1978 and a doctorate in anthropology in 1980.

At Washington University

Richard Smith joined the faculty at Washington University in 1984 and served as a professor and chair of the Department of Orthodontics, in the former School of Dental Medicine. He joined the Department of Anthropology in 1991. He founded the Program in Applied Statistics and Computation, now the Center for Applied Statistics, at Washington University, and he served as its first director from 2002 to 2004. Among undergraduates, Smith is famous for his course "Introduction to Human Evolution," which was one of the most popular classes on campus until his appointment as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2008. The course features topics from the historical development of the theory of evolution, fossil evidence, the morphological features of primates, to the beginnings of modern humans and is noted by many students to be particularly engaging, due in part to Smith's dynamic teaching style.

Research

Smith is a specialist in the application of statistics to the general record of human evolution; specifically, how the information of the necessarily incomplete human fossil record can be validly used for complex inferences. He specifically is concerned with the evolution of the human brain, the craniofacial skeleton and gender differences in body size.WUSTL News
/ref> He has also published studies making use of

phylogenetic comparative methods Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) use information on the historical relationships of lineages (phylogenies) to test evolutionary hypotheses. The comparative method has a long history in evolutionary biology; indeed, Charles Darwin used diffe ...

Selected recent publications

*"Biology and Body Size in Human Evolution: Statistical Inference Misapplied", ''Current anthropology''. 37, no. 3, (1996): 451-481 Smith, R.J. * (with W.L. Jungers) "Body mass in comparative primatology." ' Journal of Human Evolution'' 32:523-559. (1997) * (with S.R. Leigh) "Sexual dimorphism in primate neonatal body mass." ''Journal of Human Evolution'' 34: 173-201. (1998) * Statistics of sexual size dimorphism. ''Journal of Human Evolution'' 36: 423-458. (1999 ) * (with J.M. Cheverud) "Scaling of sexual dimorphism in body mass: a phylogenetic analysis of Rensch's Rule in primates". ''International Journal of Primatology'' 23:1095-1135. (2002) *" Species recognition in paleoanthropology: implications of small sample sizes." In:'' Interpreting the Past: Essays on Human, Primate, and Mammal Evolution in Honor of David Pilbeam'' (DE Lieberman, RJ Smith, and J Kelley, eds.). Boston, Brill Academic Publishers, pp. 207-219. (2005 ) * "Relative size versus controlling for size: interpretation of ratios in research on sexual dimorphism in the human corpus callosum." ''Current Anthropology'' 46: 249–273. (2005)

References

External links

Official web site at WUSTL
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Richard J. 1948 births Living people American anthropologists Human evolution theorists Tufts University School of Dental Medicine alumni Yale University alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty Samuel J. Tilden High School alumni Brooklyn College alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine