Kari Allen

Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology and Neuroscience (School of Medicine)
PhD, Duke University
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contact info:

office hours:

  • By Appointment
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mailing address:

  • Washington University
    CB 1114
    One Brookings Drive
    St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Kari Allen's research focuses on the interpretation of adaptive function in the fossil record via comparative mammalian anatomy and behavior and the use of these data to reconstruct ecological and evolutionary pressures acting on extinct primate communities.

Allen's current research is concerned primarily with two areas:

1) the timing and ecological correlates of brain size evolution, brain proportions, and cranial anatomy in primates, and
2) the use of cranio-dental anatomy to reconstruct ecological adaptations (e.g. feeding ecology) in the fossil record

 

Selected Publications

Allen, K.L., Cooke, S.B., Gonzales, L.B., Kay, R.F. 2015. Dietary inference from upper and lower molar morphology in platyrrhine primates. PLoS One.
 
Kay, R. F., Perry, J. M. G., Malinzak, M., Allen, K.L., Kirk, E. C., Plavcan, J. M., 2012. The Paleobiology of Santacrucian Primates. In: Vizcaino, S., Bargo, S., Kay, R.F., (Eds.), Early Miocene Paleobiology in Patagonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 
Allen, K. L., and Kay, R. F., 2011. Dietary Quality and Encephalization in Platyrrhine Primates. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279(1729): 715-21.
 
Gongora, J., Cuddahee, R. E., do Nascimento, F. F., Palgrave, C. J., Lowden, S., Ho, S. Y. W., Simond, D., Damayanti, C. S., White, D. J., Tay, W. T., Randi, E., Klingel, H., Rodrigues-Zarate, C. J., Allen, K., Moran, C. & Larson, G., 2011. Rethinking the evolution of extant sub-Saharan African suids (Suidae, Artiodactyla). Zoologica Scripta, 40(4), 327-335.