Primate Functional Morphology and Palaeoanthropology

Tracy Kivell is a paleoanthropologist whose research focuses on the evolution of the postcranial skeleton in living and fossil primates, including our human ancestors (hominins), to further our understanding of the evolution bipedal locomotion, manipulation and tool use throughout our evolutionary history. Tracy aims to better understand the relationship between bone shape and function through analyses of ontogeny (development), internal (trabecular and cortical) bone structure, and the biomechanics of primate locomotion. Much of her recent research and fieldwork is focused on hominin fossils from the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa. 

Tracy obtained her PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada and held postdoctoral positions at the Duke University, USA and the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, before becoming Professor of Biological Anthropology at University of Kent, UK. She became Director of the Department of Human Origins at MPI-EVA in 2023 and joined the Institute of Zoology and Evolutionary Research as a W3 Professor in Primate Functional Morphology and Palaeoanthropology in 2025.

Tracy teaches on the Masters-level "Human History" module and Bachelors-level "Morphology and Evolution of Vertebrates". Starting in 2027, she will be leading an Masters-level excursion to South Africa to learn about human evolution and discovery of hominin fossils.