About Me
Dr. Nicole M. Webb
I am a paleoanthropologist specializing in postcranial functional morphology, specifically the pelvis. I use a variety of techniques including finite element analysis, 3D geometric morphometrics and trabecular bone assessment to provide a more holistic approach to evaluating skeletal adaptation including those related to bipedalism and childbirth.
Currently, I am postdoctoral researcher based out of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, where I am heading a project with my PhD student, Laura Watson, using machine learning to explore the evolutionary origins of the elaborate human birth pattern. I am also a research associate for the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zürich where I have been working alongside Dr. Martin Häusler and his team as a postdoc since 2018 on topics also related to the evolution of childbirth. This ongoing research includes assessing cephalopelvic fit in chimpanzees and exploring the effects of birth positioning on pelvic dimensions as a means to understand birth difficulty in anatomically modern humans.