Biography
Richard Erskine Leakey is a world-renowned anthropologist, activist, Stony Brook University professor of
anthropology and chair of SBU's Turkana Basin Institute. Between 1968 and 1989, he
coordinated the National Museums of Kenya field expeditions to the eastern and western
shores of Lake Turkana. Many important finds were made, including early stone age
tools dating to around 1.9 million years old, evidence of early members of the genus
Homo, including skulls of
Homo habilis and
Homo erectus, and remains of robust australopithecines
A. boisei and
A. aethiopicus. The extraordinary discovery of the nearly complete 1.6 million year old skeleton
of the Nariokotome Boy (or Turkana Boy), a
Homo erectus youth, was among the most significant. As head of the Kenya Wildlife Services, Richard
successfully combated elephant and rhino poaching and oversaw a reorganization of
Kenya’s troubled national park system. He served as a leading spokesman for Transparency
International, a global coalition to fight corruption, and for the Great Apes Survival
Project, a United Nations effort to defend mankind's closest relatives. His books
include
The Origin of Humankind and
The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Mankind.