PAT SHIPMAN
Freelance writer and Professor of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 USA
Education: Smith College B.A. 1970 Religion; New York University M.A.1973 Physical Anthropology; New York University, Ph.D. 1977 Physical Anthropology
PRIZES AND HONORS
1965 IBM National Merit Scholarship
1971 NYU University Graduate Fellowship
1993 THE NEANDERTALS was a finalist for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize in Great Britain and a New York Times notable book of the year.
1996 My essay “One Woman’s Life in Science” won the silver medal in the editorial or column category of the Society of National Association Publications.
1997 THE WISDOM OF THE BONES was awarded the Rhône-Poulenc Prize.
1998 TAKING WING won the Phi Beta Kappa Science Prize and was one of five finalists in science in the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
2000 I was selected as the 2000 A. Dixon and Betty F. Johnson Lecturer on the
Communication of Science at Penn State.
2001 I was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science in the Anthropology division and a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.
2006 I was awarded the Leighton Wilkie Prize by the Stone Age Institute, Indiana University, for my lifetime contributions to paleoanthropology and taphonomy.
2009 I won the W. W. Howells book award for The Ape in the Tree.
BOOKS
1981 Shipman, Pat. Life History of a Fossil: An Introduction to Taphonomy and Paleoecology Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
1985 Shipman, Pat, Alan Walker, and David Bichell. The Human Skeleton. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
1992 Trinkaus, Erik, and Pat Shipman. The Neandertals: Changing the Image of Mankind. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., N.Y.
1994 Shipman, Pat. The Evolution of Racism: Human Differences and the Use and Misuse of Science. Simon & Schuster, N.Y.
1995 Walker, Alan, and Pat Shipman. The Wisdom of the Bones. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., N.Y.
1998 Shipman, Pat. Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight. Simon and Schuster, N.Y.
2001 Shipman, Pat. The Man Who Found the Missing Link. Simon & Schuster,
New York.
2004 Shipman, Pat. To the Heart of the Nile: Lady Baker and the Exploration of
Central Africa. HarperCollins, NY.
2005 Walker, Alan, and Shipman, Pat. The Ape in the Tree: A Natural and
Intellectual History of Proconsul. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
2007 Shipman, Pat. Femme Fatale; Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata
Hari. HarperCollins, New York.
In press. Shipman, Pat. The Animal Connection. W.W. Norton & Co, NY.
CAREER SUMMARY
I am internationally known as a paleoanthropologist and conducted research for many years in Africa on human evolution and the animal communities in which humans evolved. I have conducted research on material from sites in France, Spain, the United States, Java, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa.
I have written more than 50 scholarly articles, appearing in journals such as Nature, Science, Journal of Archaeological Science, Paleobiology, Journal of Human Evolution, and Current Anthropology.
I have written more than 100 articles in popular science magazines or newspapers, including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, American Scientist, Discover, and Natural History. Two of my books were featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review: The Neadertals and Taking Wing.
Taking Wing won the Phi Beta Kappa prize for science book of the year and was a runner-up for the LA Times Science Book prize. My book on Homo erectus, Wisdom of the Bones, was co-authored by Alan Walker and won the Rhone-Poulenc Prize in science writing.
My books have been widely praised as compelling, accessible, and highly readable, with a strong narrative thread. Reviewers frequently comment upon the meticulous research that underpins my books, a feature I consider to be my trademark.
My most recent popular science book, The Ape in the Tree, written with Alan Walker, was called by The Vancouver Sun “part adventure story, part cutting-edge science.” In a Science magazine review, the book was praised as “a fine account of new ways to puzzle out the behaviors of fossilized animals from odd scraps of bone.” Another reviewer raved, “Wonderfully engaging and insightful, The Ape in the Tree, is sure to become a classic in the literature on human origins.” MacArthur fellow John Fleagle wrote in the Quarterly Review of Biology, “Science writing doesn’t get any better than this.” In 2009, this book was awarded the W.W. Howells Book Prize by the American Anthropological Association.
In Britain, my new biography of Mata Hari, Femme Fatale, was selected as The Book of the Week by BBC radio. Each day during the week, an actress gave dramatic readings from the book on the air for fifteen minutes.
With The Animal Connection, I return to paleoanthropology and consider the influence of our connection with animals on human evolution and the origin of modern human behavior.
