Inaugural Bill Kimbel Impact Lecture: An Uncommon Paleoanthropologist

You are invited to join the Institute of Human Origins (IHO) Research Council and IHO Director and Professor Yohannes Haile-Selassie for the inaugural Bill Kimbel Impact Lecture. This lecture series is the outcome of an endowment established in former IHO Director William H. Kimbel’s name by his generous friends and colleagues after he passed away in April 2022.

Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres 5:30 to 7:00 pm | IHO offices

Lecture 7:00 pm | Auditorium Walton Center for Planetary Health

For this inaugural lecture, Bernard Wood, PhD, and Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at George Washington University, will focus on the scientific career of Bill Kimbel. Wood will review the nature and significance of Kimbel’s unique and important contributions to paleoanthropology through both fieldwork and analysis. Kimbel was a consummate morphologist, whose knowledge of the craniodental evidence for early hominin evolution was unequalled. But he also understood that the opportunity to recover and study the original fossil evidence was a privilege, which comes with obligations and responsibilities.

The obligations include the need for painstaking observation and analysis; the responsibilities include the requirement to present results in a way that promotes constructive and rigorous debate. Bill Kimbel was widely respected for his scholarship and professionalism. His career, which serves as a model for civility in our discipline, exemplified how the enterprise of paleoanthropology should be conducted.

Ticket proceeds above the fair market value will be contributed to the Bill Kimbel Impact Fund endowment to enable the continuance of the lecture series and, in the future, to fund student research and scholarships.

All funds will be deposited with the ASU Foundation for A New American university, a nonprofit organization that exists to support Arizona State University (ASU).  Gifts in support of ASU are subject to foundation policies and fees.  Due to the fair market value of benefits received, only payments in excess of the fair market value may be considered a charitable contribution.  Please consult your tax advisor regarding the deductibility of charitable contributions.