Christine Wall, Associate Research Professor

Contact Info:

Office Location:	08 Biological Sciences Building
Office Phone:	(919) 668-2543
Email Address:

Teaching (Fall 2012):

• EVANTH 333L.001, THE HUMAN BODY Synopsis

  Duke South 0101, TuTh 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

• EVANTH 333L.01L, THE HUMAN BODY Synopsis

  Duke South 0042, Tu 04:40 PM-05:55 PM

• EVANTH 333L.02L, THE HUMAN BODY Synopsis

  Duke South 0042, Th 04:40 PM-05:55 PM

Education:

PhD	SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY	1995
M.A.	SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY	1992
A.B.	Stanford University, Stanford, CA	1984

Specialties:

Primate Biology
Functional Morphology

Research Interests: Evolutionary Morphology

The major goal of my work is to contribute to our understanding of the functional and evolutionary anatomy of the head, with an emphasis on the feeding apparatus works and how it influences and is influenced by other structures and functions. My research focuses primarily on the functional anatomy of the feeding apparatus of extant and extinct primates, but I am also interested in other mammalian groups.

Current research projects include:

(1) a detailed study of both the recruitment patterns and the fiber types of the jaw adductor muscles of macaques and baboons. The goals are to determine the nature of the general relationship between recruitment pattern and fiber type for the jaw adductors, to find out whether the jaw adductors are sexually dimorphic in these anthropoid primates, and if so, to develop a biomechanical model to describe this relationship and relate it to both size and function;

(2) a collaborative project with Greg Wray (Duke Biology), Brian Hare (Duke Evolutionary Anthropology), and Sarah Tishkoff (University of Pennsylvania) to study variation in the expression patterns of a number of diet-related genes in chimpanzees and humans;

(3) development of a public database - the Feeding Experiments End-user Database (FEED) in collaboration with Dr. Rebecca German (Johns Hopkins), Dr. Susan Williams (Ohio Univ.), Dr. Chris Vinyard (NEOUCOM), and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. This database includes physiological data from a large number of mammalian species collected by numerous researchers. Its design will allow synthetic and integrative analyses of the evolution of the oropharyngeal apparatus and feeding behaviors in mammals, and

(4) investigations of the energetic costs of feeding behaviors in humans and nonhuman primates. The goal of this work is to better understand the relationship between the functional anatomy of the feeding apparatus and the metabolic costs that an animal incurs during feeding.

Current Ph.D. Students  

• Maxx C. Toler  

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. CE Wall, CJ Vinyard, SH Williams, KR Johnson, and WL Hylander, Specializations of the superficial anterior temporalis muscle for hard-object feeding in baboons., in Primate Craniofacial Function and Biology, edited by Ravosa, Vinyard, and Wall (Submitted, 2006), Plenum Press, New York
2. CE Wall, CJ Vinyard, SH Williams, KR Johnson, and WL Hylander, Phase II occlusion in relation to jaw movement and masseter muscle recruitment during chewing in Papio anubis., American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Accepted, 2006) (published online November, 2005.)
3. Vinyard, CJ, Wall CE, Williams SH, Johnson KR, and Hylander WL., Masseter electromyography during chewing in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta), Am. J. Physical Anthropology (Accepted, 2006)  [author's comments]
4. Wall CE, A model of TMJ function in anthropoid primates based on condylar movements during mastication, Am. J. Physical Anthropology, vol. 109 (1999), pp. 67-88
5. Wall CE, The expanded mandibular condyle of the Megaladapidae, Am. J. Physical Anthropology, vol. 103 (1997), pp. 263-76

Conferences Organized

• Festschrift to Honor William Hylander, American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Organizer, Moderator, January 2005