Women in Science and Engineering at Yale (2020 Edition)

Jessica Thompson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Photo credit: Jacob Davis

Jessica Thompson specializes in human evolution and especially what can be revealed through the analysis of ancient animal bones at archaeological sites (zooarchaeology). She leads the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and People’s Project in Malawi, central Africa, where she has maintained a field site since 2009. This multidisciplinary work combines archaeological science, evolutionary theory, and hunter-gatherer ethnography to develop and interpret the first cultural and paleoenvironmental chronologies in the region that span the transition since the last Ice Age. Her other research, based on collaborative work in Ethiopia, targets the opposite end of the archaeological record, at its origin in the Pliocene. She is Principal Investigator of the Paleoarcheology Laboratory at Yale University.

Professor Thompson’s archaeological site Hora 1 in Mzimba District, Malawi, during excavation. Photo credit: Jessica Thompson