Dr. Donna Hart
Phone: 314/516-6474Email: hartd@umsl.edu
Education: Dr. Donna Hart received her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Washington University in 2000. She joined the UM – St. Louis Anthropology Department in the same year.
Research and Teaching: Dr. Hart is the Director of Undergraduate Research for the Department of Anthropology and Languages. Majors are mentored and encouraged to carry out original research and present their work at the UM – St. Louis Undergraduate Research Symposium and Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol, through Fulbright and other scholarly grants, and at professional meetings.
Dr. Hart teaches the Senior Seminar in Anthropology, a course in which majors are required to conduct research and write a thesis. Many aspects of biological anthropology are of interest to Dr. Hart, reflected in other courses that she teaches, such as Human Variation, Human Diversity and Concepts of Race, Introduction to Non-Human Primates, and Primate Research Methods.
Dr. Hart has carried out field research in both Africa and Asia. Her primary research interest is predation on primates, including ecological and behavioral interactions between primate prey and carnivores, reptiles, and raptors. Specific sites include Rukomechi Reserve in Zimbabwe and Yala National Park in Sri Lanka.
Personal History: Dr. Hart has had a life-long interest in wildlife and the environment. She began her academic studies in the field of biology which launched a twenty-year professional career in wildlife conservation. Her area of expertise was international treaties, such as the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), International Whaling Commission, Bonn Convention on Migratory Species, and the Convention on Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Since most wildlife problems are essentially human problems, she turned to the study of anthropology with its holistic approach when pursuing graduate degrees.
Professional Activities: Dr. Hart, and coauthor Robert Sussman of Washington University, received the 2006 W. W. Howells book prize for Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution which concerns the role of predation as a factor in human evolution. A second expanded edition of the book was published in 2008 (Westview/Perseus Press). She is currently writing a textbook on human diversity entitled The Complex Nature of Human Variation.
