Professor uses hands-on focus to convey personal adventures


Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1998	Professor uses hands-on focus to convey personal adventures Editor's Note: This is the fourth story in a weekly series profiling University professors and instructors. This story focuses on Alan Walker, professor of anthropology and biology. By TIFFANY M. SPANGENBERG Collegian Staff Writer If you've ever wanted to hold a gorilla skull, consider taking biological anthropology (ANTH 21). As a lab exercise for the class, Alan Walker, a paleoanthropologist, takes students into a lab and lets them hold real gorilla -- and human -- skulls. "It is different to hold a gorilla skull than to see a picture (of one)," said Walker, professor of anthropology and biology. "I think (hands-on experience is) important." Before coming to the University in 1995, Walker taught anatomy at universities in Uganda and Kenya. He moved to the United States to teach anatomy at Harvard University before transferring to The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he taught cell biology and anatomy.
Alan Walker, professor of anthropology and biology, checks his E-mail Monday afternoon in his lab in the Carpenter Building. Walker has received several awards for his research and findings in anthropology. (Collegian Photo/Aimee C. Toberman - click for full size image)	Walker came to the University after administrators heard he was dissatisfied at Johns Hopkins and recruited him, he said. At the University, Walker said he enjoys working with his coworkers, including his graduate and undergraduate lab assistants. "My colleagues are really friendly," Walker said. He said he also likes being able to teach his own research, instead of being restricted to teaching anatomy and cell biology as in previous positions. Besides teaching, Walker has done plenty of fieldwork. Walker likened finding an artifact to finding a treasure. Among his "treasures" are the Black Skull, a skull that strengthened the argument that humans may have had more than a single lineage of ancestors called australopithecines. Another important "treasure" is Nariokotome Boy, which was discovered in 1984 near Lake Turkana in northern Kenya with Richard Leaky, former paleoanthropologist, and Kamoya Kimeu, an aide to Leaky who found the first piece. Nariokotome Boy is the most complete skeleton of Homo erectus, an ancestor of modern humans.
Anthropology professor Alan Walker examines x-rays of chimpanzee tibias to determine the gender in a lab in Carpenter Building Monday. (Collegian Photo/Aimee C. Toberman - click for full size image)	During the excavation the group removed 1,000 tons of rock over five summers, Walker said, and the hole dug to remove the skeleton reached a depth of about 30 feet. One night a camel fell into the site. The group found the animal the next morning -- it had broken its neck in the fall and died, he added. For his work, Walker has been the recipient of many awards during his career, including Guggenheim Foundation fellowships, the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award" and the Rhone-Poulenc Prize for science books for writing Wisdom of the Bones, which was completed with his wife, Pat Shipman. The Rhone-Poulenc award, called the most prestigious science writing award in the world, was presented to Walker and Shipman at a formal dinner ceremony in England. "It's like the Academy Awards," Walker said about the ceremony, down to the names of the winners being sealed in envelopes. People even bet on who will win, Walker said with a smile.