Meave Leakey , a member of a renowned family of paleoanthropologists who have dominated their field since the beginning of the 20th century, will give a talk Monday, April 6, at West Virginia University .

Leakeys presentation,A Look at Evolution from the Basis of Fossil Evidence in Africa,is at 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlair ballrooms and will be followed by a reception.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of WVU s David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas and DarwinFest , a series of activities surrounding the 200th birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin.

For 70 years, the Leakeys have been digging in Africa, uncovering fossilized clues to the origins of humansearliest ancestors. Meave Leakeys field and laboratory work have established her as one of the most visible and distinguished scientists in a highly competitive and male-dominated profession.

She was part of the research team that in 1999 unearthed theflat-faced man of Kenya,a 3.5 million-year-old skull which represented a new branch of the early human family tree. Five years earlier, her field expedition discovered an important piece of the evolutionary puzzle: a new species of hominid, or early human, that began to walk upright at least 4 million years ago, half a million years earlier than previously thought.

Leakeys research also includes studying the evolution of monkeys, apes, carnivores and mammalian faunas. She has written more than 50 scientific articles and presented lectures all over the world.

Leakey has worked at the National Museums of Kenya since 1969 and was head of the division of paleontology from 1982 to 2001. She continues her research as a research affiliate of the National Museums. She is also a National Geographic explorer-in-residence in recognition of the 50-year relationship between the National Geographic Society and the Leakey family dynasty of pioneering fossil hunters.

In addition to her work in Kenya, Leakey is a research professor at Stony Brook University.

The David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas is named after WVU s president emeritus who created the lecture series. Each year, the festival brings key figures from the fields of sports, politics, business, entertainment, research, scholarship and culture to Morgantown. The series is supported in part by the David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas Endowment.