Congrats to Dr. Carol Ward, a Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in the University of Missouri School of Medicine, who was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). Ward was nominated and elected by members of the academy in recognition of her contributions to the field of anthropology.

Founded in 1780, by a group including John Adams and John Hancock, AAAS honors leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas and to address issues of importance to the nation and the world. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were among the first members elected to the academy in 1781.

Election to the academy is among the highest honors in the fields of arts and sciences.

Ward studies the evolution of apes and early hominins, focusing on the fossil record from East and South Africa. She co-leads the West Turkana Paleo Project, a National Science Foundation-funded paleontological fieldwork project in Kenya searching for fossil evidence of early hominins and their environments. Ward also studies the evolution of the hominoid torso, combining CT scan data with more traditional analyses. She uses this information to interpret the evolution of body shape and locomotion in ape and human evolution.

Ward is recognized as an international expert in human evolution and her recent awards honor her decades of work with the University of Missouri.