Peter S. Rodman is a Professor Emeritus at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

in the Department of Anthropology. Rodman began teaching and conducting research at Davis in 1972, and continued until 2006. His specialty while a professor there was in the field of

physical anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...

and

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fos ...

, and the study of

orangutans Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus ...

and their behavior and ecology in particular, although he has also authored or co-authored works on

woolly monkey The woolly monkeys are the genus ''Lagothrix'' of New World monkeys, usually placed in the family Atelidae. Both species in this genus originate from the rainforests of South America. They have prehensile tails and live in relatively large soci ...

s, on

bipedal locomotion Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' 'double' ...

in chimpanzees, and reproduction in

bonnet macaque The bonnet macaque (''Macaca radiata''), also known as zati,Chambers English Dictionary is a species of macaque endemic to southern India. Its distribution is limited by the Indian Ocean on three sides and the Godavari and Tapti Rivers, along w ...

s . Among other positions while at UC Davis, Rodman held the Chair of the Executive Committee of the school's College of Letters and Sciences as well as the Chair of the Department of Anthropology. He was closely associated with the California National Primate Research Center, located in

Davis, California Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Da ...

. While a professor at UC Davis, Rodman also became known for waging a "one-man battle" to toughen the campus smoke-free policy,

Publications

Rodman has nearly 50 research publications in the field of physical anthropology, and his works have been cited more than 2000 times. The article, "Orangutans: Sexual Dimorphism in a Solitary Species", coauthored by Rodman and John Mitani, is widely considered among primatologists as a definitive publication on

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

among orangutans, for whom this characteristic is an extreme one. Rodman spent a total of 3½ years in eastern

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java Isl ...

between 1969 and 1983 studying this species of ape.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodman, Peter Living people American anthropologists Primatologists University of California, Davis faculty Harvard University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)