Jane B. Lancaster

Jane Lancaster is a 40-year anthropologist with an international reputation for her research on hominin biosocial evolution. Lancaster has studied primates and humans in both contemporary and ancient contexts and specializes in what used to be called physical anthropology, known today as human evolutionary anthropology. Lancaster's training was as a primatologist and paleoanthropologist, and she has added expertise in contemporary human reproduction viewed through the lens of evolutionary ecology. She arrived at the University of New Mexico Anthropology department in 1985 and was named a Distinguished Professor in 2012.

Lancaster's original professional interest was the study of primates. Over the years, she has moved to the study of human behaviors, particularly involving reproduction and parental investments in offspring. Among her many achievements, Lancaster is the author of a classic book in the field Primate Behavior and the Emergence of Human Culture. She also edited a book series on teen parenthood, child abuse and neglect, and parenting through the life course.

Lancaster founded Human Nature, an interdisciplinary journal, in 1990. Human Nature is a forum that integrates physiology, psychology, sociology, and behavioral ecology with an evolutionary eye that has transformed these fields. Lancaster is considered a pioneer in the human evolutionary sciences.