Prof. Noël Cameron

Loughborough University, United Kingdom

TOPIC – Critical periods in the evolution of growth in Hominins

Noël Cameron (B.Ed., M.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc., FRSB) is Emeritus Professor of Human Biology at Loughborough University, UK. He is a graduate of the Universities of Nottingham, Loughborough, and London. At Loughborough he initially studied for an MSc in Human Biology and then pursued a PhD in Medicine at University College London under the supervision of Professor James Tanner at the Institute of Child Health. He was subsequently appointed to a lectureship and undertook research in normal and abnormal child growth. He spent from 1984 to 1997 as Associate (1987) and then Full Professor of Anatomy and Human Biology (1994) in the Department of Anatomy of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. In addition to several rural longitudinal growth studies, he initiated the Birth to Twenty (Bt20) birth-cohort study in Soweto and Johannesburg in 1991 which has become the longest running and most detailed longitudinal study of child health and growth in any developing country. Noël Cameron returned to the UK in 1997 as Professor of Human Biology at his alma mater, Loughborough University. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 1998 for his significant contribution to research in human biology. In 2018 he was awarded the Doctor of Science (DSc) degree from Loughborough University for his significant contribution to knowledge in human growth and development. Noël became a Professor Emeritus in 2020 and continues to be involved in several longitudinal studies of human growth in South Africa, England, and Croatia which facilitate his research into the early determinants of risk for non-communicable disease of lifestyle such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and cardio-vascular disease. He is also involved in elucidating the ontogeny of our human ancestors through the analysis of fossil remains of Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi from sites in the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa. He has published over 300 peer reviewed papers, scholarly chapters, and 7 books, and has over 22,500 citations. Noël is Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Human Biology and has served on the Executive Committees of Human Biology and Anthropology societies in Europe and the USA.  He was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania (1990), Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (2008-2010) the William Evans Visiting Fellow at Otago University, New Zealand (2015) and is an Honorary Research Associate of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.