Faculty Profile: Dr. John H. Relethford
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Dr. John H. Relethford (Distinguished Teaching Professor) is a biological anthropologist who received his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1980 from the State University of New York at Albany. Prior to his current position at SUCO, he held the position of Post-Doctoral Research Scientist with the Department of Genetics at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. He also served as Manager of Injury and Disability Surveillance in the Division of Epidemiology at the New York State Department of Health. In addition, he has served as an adjunct faculty in the Departments of Anthropology and Epidemiology at SUNY at Albany and continues to hold an adjunct position in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Dr. Relethford is a recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching (1994-95), and was the inaugural winner of the SUNY-Oneonta Susan Sutton Smith Prize for Academic Excellence in 1995. He was promoted to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor, the highest rank in the State University system, in 1998.
In addition to complete responsibility for the introductory biological anthropology course, Dr. Relethford also teaches courses on human biological variation, human evolution, anthropological genetics, and the biological impact of culture change. Dr. Relethford's major interests are in the fields of anthropological genetics, human variation, and modern human origins. Much of his research has focused on the reconstruction of history from patterns of modern biological variation. His past work has also included studies of migration, quantitative genetics, child growth, epidemiology, and aging. His current work focuses on two topics, the evolutionary history of Irish populations and the origin of modern humans. These projects have been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (Ireland) and the SUNY Graduate Initiative program (modern humans).
Dr. Relethford has over 150 publications, including 77 peer-reviewed journal articles and 14 book chapters. His introductory text, The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology (McGraw-Hill, 2008), is in its seventh edition. He has also written Genetics and the Search for Modern Human Origins (John Wiley & Sons, 2001), and Reflections of Our Past: How Human History is Revealed in Our Genes, which was published in April 2003 (Westview Press). He is also a coauthor of the textbook Human Biological Variation, published by Oxford University Press (2006). Other significant publications include "The use of quantitative traits in the study of human population structure (Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 1982, with F.C. Lees)," "Detection of differential gene flow from patterns of quantitative variation (Human Biology, 1990, with J. Blangero)," "Craniometric variation, genetic theory, and modern human origins (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1994, with H.C. Harpending)," "Genetics and modern human origins (Evolutionary Anthropology, 1995), "Anthropometric variation and the population history of Ireland" (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1995, with M.H. Crawford), "Genetics of human origins and diversity" (Annual Review of Anthropology 27:1-23), and "Models and predictions, and the fossil record of modern human origins" (Evolutionary Anthropology 8:7-10).
Dr. Relethford currently serves on the Editorial Board of Human Biology. He has also served as an Associate Editor for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the Journal of Human Evolution, and Human Heredity, and served on the editorial boards of the journals American Anthropologist ,Current Anthropology, and the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. He is currently Past-President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and has previously served as President, Vice President, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the organization. He has also served as Vice President and President of the American Association of Anthropological Genetics.
Courses taught by Dr. Relethford:
ANTH
130 Introduction to Biological Anthropology
ANTH
232 Human Biology and Culture Change
ANTH 233 Genetics and Human
History
ANTH 239
Human Origins and Evolution
ANTH
330 Paleoanthropology
ANTH 332 Human Population Genetics
ANTH
333 Human Biological Variation
ANTH 390 Issues in
Anthropology
E-Mail: relethjh@oneonta.edu