Dr. Junginger is a juniorprofessor of micropaleontology and head of the micropaleontology group in the Department of Geosciences of the University of Tübingen, Germany. She also is a member of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment. Dr. Junginger’s research focus is paleo-climate and environmental reconstructions as well as water provenance studies in East Africa inferred from lake sediments and their microfossils for the past million years.

Dr. Junginger earned a diploma in geology, hydrology, and meteorology from the University of Potsdam and FU Berlin in Germany; and a Dr. rer. nat. in paleoclimatology from the University of Potsdam. She completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Potsdam.

Dr. Schrenk is head of the Paleoanthropology Section of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, and a professor of paleobiology at the Institute for Ecology, Evolution, and Diversity at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Dr. Schrenk is also chairman of the board of the Uraha Foundation in Germany and a member of the board of trustees of the Uraha Foundation in Malawi. Previously, Dr. Schrenk served as head of the Paleontology Department at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany.

His research has focused on the paleoanthropology, biogeography, and evolutionary ecology of Plio-Pleistocene Africa (with field work in Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda), evolutionary and functional morphology of mammals, uplift of the Rwenzori Mountains, and climactic impacts on the evolution of the Homo species.

Dr. Schrenk collaborated with Dr. Timothy Bromage on the discovery of a 2.4-million-year-old jaw in Malawi, which unearthed the oldest known remains of the genus, Homo. The finding marked the first time that scientists discovered an early human fossil outside of established early human sites in eastern and southern Africa. Dr. Schrenk set up the Cultural and Museum Centre Karonga in Malawi and initiated the Hominids for schools program to promote African-German dialog between European and African pupils and teachers.

He earned a Habilitation in palaeontology from the Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany; a PhD in biology from the University Clinic at Goethe University; and an MSc in geology and palaeontology from the Technical University.

Dr. McFarlin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. She is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on understanding the significance of bone and tooth biology and micro anatomy for revealing aspects of the growth and development, life history, behavior and environments of primates and other organisms. 

She is engaged in a number of collaborative projects, which aim to integrate data derived from focused observational studies of living primates from well documented wild populations, with investigations of their hard tissue remains after death.  Her research with the Rwanda Development Board, Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International’s Karisoke Research Center and Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project in Rwanda uses photogrammetric techniques to investigate factors influencing variation in offspring growth and development in living mountain gorillas, partnered with research on a large naturally-accumulated collection of skeletal remains from this site that examines relationships between life history, environmental factors and hard tissue development.

Dr. McFarlin earned a PhD and an MPhil in Physical Anthropology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Dr. Bromage is a professor of biomaterials & biomimetics and of basic science and craniofacial biology at New York University College of Dentistry. In 2010, Dr. Bromage won the Max Planck Research award. The award, given by the Max Planck Society and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, included a stipend of 750,000 Euros ($1.02 million USD).

In citing Dr. Bromage's qualifications for receiving the award, the selection committee noted that his research on the microanatomical structure of ancestral human teeth and bones has established the modern fields of human evolution growth, development, and life history—the pace by which an organism grows. Moreover, noted the committee, his research has shown a relationship between bone and tooth microstructure and body size, metabolic rate, age, and other biological features.

Dr. Bromage was the first researcher to use biologically based principles of craniofacial development to reconstruct early hominid skulls. His computer-generated reconstruction of a 1.9-million-year-old skull originally discovered in Kenya in 1972 by renowned paleontologist and archaeologist Richard Leakey showed that Homo rudolfensis, modern man's earliest-known close ancestor, looked more apelike than previously believed.

In human evolution fieldwork, Dr. Bromage's 1992 discovery of a 2.4-million-year-old jaw in Malawi unearthed the oldest known remains of the genus, Homo. The finding, made in collaboration with Dr. Friedemann Schrenk, marked the first time that scientists discovered an early human fossil outside of established early human sites in eastern and southern Africa.

Dr. Bromage also previously served as a professor of anthropology at Hunter College of the City University of New York.  He earned a PhD and an MA in biological anthropology from the University of Toronto.