“Yared” joined the Ross Lab in August 2025 as a Postdoctoral Researcher. He is a paleoanthropologist broadly interested in patterns of morphological variation and how morphology changes through development. During his PhD in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at UChicago, Yared investigated craniofacial development and variation in early hominins, particularly in Australopithecus afarensis, using detailed morphological descriptions and geometric morphometrics, under the mentorship of Prof. Alemseged (see Alemseged Lab website for details All Members | Alemseged Lab).

For his postdoctoral research, Yared studies the evolution and functional morphology of the hominoid feeding apparatus under the supervision of Prof. Ross. His work integrates dissection-based approaches and craniofacial skeletal analyses to quantify biomechanical performance in extant apes and uses it as a base to infer feeding performance in extinct hominins. He is extending this adult-focused framework to examine how feeding performance changes across ontogeny in both extant apes and the fossil hominins.

Yared also teaches human anatomy to medical students with members of the Ross Lab.