Cynthia Beall

Physical Anthropologist, Case Western Reserve, Guggeneheim Fellowship Awardee

Cynthia Beall is a physical anthropologist whose special interests are human growth and development, aging, human adaptability, and medical ecology. She has conducted research on growth and development and infant morbidity/mortality in Andean populations, high altitude hypoxia and aging in Nepal and Bolivia and physical activity, physical fitness, and aging in Nepal. She has also researched high-altitude human adaptability and aging and diet in Tibet. Her groundbreaking works are the basis of our knowledge on adaptation to low oxygen conditions and how it influences the evolutionary selection in modern humans.

Beall completed a B.A. in biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. She entered Pennsylvania State University to obtain an M.A. in anthropology in 1972, and a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1976. She is a distinguished university professor and The Sarah Idell Pyle professor of anthropology, Case Western Reserve University.