Dr Meave Leakey is an outstanding figure in the rarefied, and male-dominated, world of fossil monkey and early hominid evolution research. She is particularly distinguished by her many years of dedicated field work, backed by a substantial body of high-quality publications. She has been Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, New York since 1996 and since 1989 has provided distinguished leadership of field expeditions in Kenya, focusing on deposits from 8 to 1.3 Ma, leading to major discoveries of earliest hominids, including Australopithecus anamensis and the human ancestor Kenyanthropus platyops. The UCL 2004 citation for Doctor of Science (honoris causa) read:
’Dr Leakey is well known for her pioneering work with the Turkana Basin Research Project in Kenya, discovering evidence of our earliest human ancestors. She is a research associate in the Palaeontology Division of the National Museums of Kenya, and has contributed more to the world’s understanding of the early phases of human evolution in eastern Africa than any other individual.’