Owen Lovejoy

Kent State University Professor of Anthropology Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy, is internationally recognized as one of today’s preeminent biological anthropologists in the study of human origins,

Lovejoy reconstructed the skeleton of "Lucy" a near-complete fossil of a human ancestor that walked upright more than three million years ago. He also has been active in paleodemography and human origins modeling, including the theory that upright walking was closely tied to monogamous mating in early hominids.

Currently, Lovejoy is one of seven researchers examining a more ancient find, Ardipithecus ramidus, and he recently joined in the
discovery and definition of a new species of hominid, Australopithecus garhi, a probable direct linear ancestor of modern humans.

In addition to teaching at Kent State for almost 30 years, Lovejoy is a clinical professor of anatomy at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, a research associate for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, a technical advisor for the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office in Cleveland, Ohio, and a member of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Case Western Reserve University.

A widely published author with more than 100 articles in publications such as Science, Nature, Bioessays and Scientific American, Lovejoy serves on the editorial board for Anthropological Science. He also holds the honor of being one of the Institute for Scientific Information’s "Most Highly Cited" authors in social sciences.

Lovejoy received a doctorate in biological anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, an M.A. in biological anthropology from the Case Institute of Technology, and a B.A. in psychology from Western Reserve University.