Robert Wald Sussman (July 4, 1941 – June 8, 2016) was an American

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

and professor at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

. His research concerned the evolution of primate and human behavior, and he was interested in race as a social construct. He was a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

Biography

Sussman was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, in 1941.Robert Wald Sussman Memorial, LifeStory – LifePosts
/ref> He earned undergraduate and master's degrees from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

, and he completed a Ph.D. in anthropology at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

in 1972 under John Buettner-Janusch. After teaching briefly at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

in New York, he became a member of the faculty in the

Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis is home to the College of Arts and Sciences and corresponding graduate programs across its many departments. The current Dean of the Faculty is Feng Sheng Hu, the Lucille P. Markey Distingui ...

. Sussman's interest was in the evolution of behavior in primates, and he was known for his work with

lemur Lemurs ( ; from Latin ) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea ( ), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are Endemism, ...

s from Madagascar. He said that studying the behavior of primates would enhance the understanding of human behavior. In the 1990s, he was editor-in-chief of the journal ''

American Anthropologist ''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an American organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 m ...

''. He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2000, and he later chaired AAAS Section H (Anthropology). In 2014, Sussman wrote '' The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea''. In this book, he described race as a

social construct A social construct is any category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement. Socially constructed realities are contrasted with natural kinds, which exist independently of human behavior or beliefs. Simple examples of s ...

rather than an entity based on science. An earlier book, ''Man The Hunted: Primates, Predators and Human Evolution'' (co-authored with Donna Hart), made the case that early man evolved as prey rather than as hunters. Sussman died at his home on June 8, 2016, not long after being released from the hospital after a stroke. He was survived by his wife Linda, who was a medical anthropologist and research associate in WUSTL's anthropology department. In 2018, the AAAS established the Robert W. Sussman Award for Scientific Contributions to Anthropology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sussman, Robert 1941 births 2016 deaths Academics from Brooklyn American academic journal editors American Anthropologist editors American anthropologists Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni Hunter College faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Social constructionism University of California, Los Angeles alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty