Cornelia V.M. Seiffert

A Durham, NC native, Cornelia graduated cum laude with an AB degree in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy from Duke University in 1996 and went on to receive her MA in Physical Anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1998. Anthropology, being a broadly defined discipline, encompases two main subfields which are cultural anthropology and biological/physical anthropology. Cornelia's Master's degree is in biological/physical anthropology, and her areas of expertise are paleoanthropology, and functional morphology of primates. She also has a great deal of experience with primate behavior, and ecology, as well as with both primate and human anatomy and osteology.

While at the University of Texas, Cornelia was both a research assistant and a teaching assistant. Her Master's thesis was on the functional morphology of the prosimian vertebral column under Dr. Liza Shapiro.

Cornelia has had extensive paleontological field experience, joining expeditions to collect subfossil lemurs in Madagascar, Eocene vertebrate fossils in the badlands of Wyoming, and Eocene/Oligocene vertebrate fossils in the Fayum, Egypt. Many of the unique fossils collected on those expeditions are house in the Duke Primate Center's Division of Fossil Primates. Cornelia has also had a life-long interest in living prosimian primates; her father has been involved with the Duke University Primate Center since 1977, and Cornelia has volunteered there over the years.

Cornelia joined the Shodor Foundation in May, 2000, she is responsible for bioscience education and is currently overseeing the maintenance of web sites for the Burroughs Wellcome Fund's Student Science Enrichment Program (SSEP), and Durham Public Schools Project RAMP.

Cornelia is also currently the Director of Shodor's newly funded SSEP program called the Mentor Center.

You can contact Cornelia at:

The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.
923 Broad Street Suite 100
Durham, NC 27705

(919) 286-1911 (voice/TDD)
(919) 818-0759 (mobile)
(919) 286-7876 (fax)
[email protected]
Please visit Cornelia's personal web site.