Biography

About Me

Dr. Harper is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at CSMRU.Dr. Harper earned her PhD in Functional Anatomy and Evolution in 2020 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and continued on as a postdoctoral fellow in the same department. She studies human evolution through the quantitative analysis of human and nonhuman postcranial biomechanics and functional morphology. Recently her work has focused on determining how the external shape of the human and great ape calcaneus relates to degree of arboreality to expand our understanding of the importance of arboreal behaviors for early hominins. Additionally, she works on the development and application of novel methods to address some of the difficulties surrounding the use of complex three-dimensional data. At CMSRU, Dr. Harper teaches gross anatomy to the first and second year medical students and facilitates an active learning group. In addition, she continues her work utilizing and developing quantitative methodologies to study the evolution and biomechanics of the postcranial skeleton in humans and nonhuman primates, as well more broadly across mammals. Dr. Harper can be reached at harperc@rowan.edu.