Dr. Nandini Singh
Current Position
Penn State: http://getahead.psu.edu/PC.html
Nandini Singh is a physical anthropologist working on the evolution and development of the primate skull. Her research is interdisciplinary in nature, using models from evolutionary developmental biology and anthropology to study factors that influence phenotypic variation and variability in human and non-human ape skulls.
Research Interests
- Primate cranio-mandibular evolution and development - Morphological integration and modularity
- Allometry
- 3D geometric morphometrics
Current research
Nandini’s current postdoctoral research, which is jointly funded by an independent Marie-Curie European grant and the Senckenberg Research Institution, is on the evolution and development of directional asymmetry in living hominids. Aspects of directional asymmetry are common in most living organisms, but its evolutionary history and conservation in primate skulls is not well known. Her postdoctoral work will investigate this trait in non-human apes and a sample of non-pathological and microcephalic humans. This study is divided into three parts: 1) examining the evolutionary aspects of asymmetry across adult modern human and non-human apes; 2) examining developmental aspects of this trait in subadult human and non-human apes; 3) comparing the degree of asymmetry in microcephalic and non-pathological humans.
Other research projects include: 1) Re-examining sub-species differences in Pan (in collaboration with Profs. Boesch and Harvati); 2) Allometric variation in great ape crania (in collaboration with Dr. Klingenberg); 3) Phenotypic variation between rats selected for tameness and aggression towards humans (in collaboration with Prof. Harvati and Dr. Albert).