William Sanders
Museum of Paleontology
University of Michigan
1109 Geddes Avenue
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 USA

Bill Sanders is the Chief Vertebrate Preparator and an Assistant Research Scientist in the Museum of Paleontology at The University of Michigan. He earned degrees from The University of Chicago (BA, Anthropology) and New York University (MPhil, PhD, Paleoanthropology). His principal research interests include hominoid evolution and paleobiology, proboscidean evolution and systematics, taphonomy, and the transformation of Old World Cenozoic mammalian faunas. These interests have taken him for fieldwork to Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania. In addition to those countries, his research has involved museum study of fossil material in Kenya, South Africa, France, and the United Kingdom. His recent projects include analysis of the large-bodied mammals from Chilga, Ethiopia (many of them new taxa), reconstruction of the positional behavior of the early Miocene catarrhine Proconsul, investigation of the functional morphology of the vertebral column in Australopithecus africanus individual Stw-431 from Sterkfontein, South Africa, study of the taphonomic signal of raptor kill assemblages, phylogenetic study of elephants, and systematic study of a new fossil proboscidean collection from the early-middle Miocene site of Fejej, Ethiopia. With Lars Werdelin, Bill is currently working on editing the “Cenozoic Mammals of Africa,” to be published by University of California Press. In addition, he has worked to enhance recognition of the role of preparators for the proper treatment and maintenance of fossil collections, and currently serves as the chair of the Preparator’s Grant committee, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.