Update-Prof. William (Bill) Kimbel- RIP

Update: His funeral is being broadcasted to registered individuals via Zoom Saturday the 28th, you can register here.

It is with the utmost sadness that I inform you, for those who do not already know, that the famed paleoanthropologist, who served as the director of the IHO at ASU for 13 years, Dr. Bill Kimbel, passed on this morning.

This is the third obituary for a famed, well loved, and amazing scientist that I have had to write, not since I started my career as a science communicator and journalist, but the third just this year.

We have lost many a great minds this year, it has been a crushing blow to paleoanthropology. From Richard Leakey, to Isaiah Nengo, and now Bill Kimbel, all of these professors have left a massive, permanent mark on the field. Whether you agree with their hypotheses, methods, or ways of doing things, there is no way to deny the contribution that these three men have made for the world of anthropology.

Dr. Kimbel received his Ph.D from Kent State University, and went on to lead an impressive career, from ASU’s website, “For more than 30 years, Kimbel has conducted research on Australopithecus and early Homo in Africa, Neanderthals in the Middle East, the evolution of hominin skull form and function, and concepts of biological systematics as applied to paleoanthropological problems. Since 1990, he has codirected or directed research at the Hadar hominin site in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Kimbel is also a Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. He is a founding member of the Afar Rift Valley Research Consortium, a group working on a region-wide understanding of human evolution and its contexts. Kimbel was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005.”

Dr. Kimbel will be deeply missed, not only by the friends and family that he leaves behind, but the many students and minds that he has touched.

After a long, and arduous battle with cancer, Dr. Kimbel passed away this morning, Sunday the 17th of 2022.

He has earned his rest, and may he take it in peace.

Seth Chagi