I started at PSU in 1971 as its Biological Anthropologist. I did most undergraduate training at UCLA; my PhD in Biological Anthropology was from the University of Oregon. I retired in 2002 and stopped teaching in 2005. From 1982-2002 I served as Department Chair, undertaking a significant restructuring of the Department. My early research focused on primate/human evolution with a specialization in morphometrics - the application of statistical models to patterns of biological form. My research took me to all major museum collections in the US, UK, and Western and Central Europe, and included studying major hominin and primate fossils. My later work focused on simplifying research methodology to use less stringent modeling assumptions. Along the way, I collaborated with medical researchers at UC San Diego as a research methodologist on a series of papers on ovarian cysts and endometrial thickness in pre- and post-menopausal women.
Selected Works:
- Feldesman, Marc R. 2002. Classification trees as an alternative to linear discriminant analysis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 119: 257-275. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.10102
- Feldesman, Marc R, Fountain, Robert L, 1996, “Race” specificity and the femur/stature ratio American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 100: 207-224. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1096-8644(199606)100:2%3C207::aid-ajpa4%3E3.0.co;2-u
- Feldesman, Marc R, 1992. Femur/stature ratio and estimates of stature in children. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 87: 447-459. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330870406
- Lin, MC, Gosink, BB, Wolf, SI, Feldesman, MR, Stuenkel, CA, Braly, PS, Pretorius, DH. 1991, Endometrial thickness after menopause: effect of hormone replacement. Radiology 180: 427-432. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiology.180.2.1829843
- Feldesman, Marc R, Lundy, John K 1987. The femur/stature ratio and estimates of stature in mid- to late Pleistocene fossil hominids. Journal of Human Evolution. 17: 583-596. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330830309
- Feldesman, Marc R 1982. Morphometric analysis of the distal humerus of some Cenozoic catarrhines: the late divergence hypothesis revisited. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 61: 73-95. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330590108