Awards
In 1997 he was appointed to an adjunct Professorial position in the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University in Durham North Carolina and the following year as an Honorary Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas. Twice collaborative research papers have been recognized as being among the top 100 Science stories of the year by Discover Magazine, an international periodical focusing on popular scientific issues. The first recognition came in 1995 for his co-authored work with Prof. Ron Clarke of Wits on the taphonomy of the Taung site and in 1998 for his co-authored work with Prof. Henry McHenry of the University of California, Davis on limb lengths in Australopithecus africanus.
He is a National Press Photographers Association Humanitarian Award winner in 1987 for throwing his camera down while working as a news photographer for television station WTOC and jumping into the Savannah River to save a drowning woman. His work in exploration and in human evolutionary studies has been covered in numerous international magazine feature articles and no less than twenty major international television documentaries. He has most recently been featured in National Geographic’s Naked Science series, National Geographic Channel’s Ultimate Survivor which premiered in March 2005 and Ancient Enemies with acclaimed Director/Producer Derrick Joubert. He is presently filming and hosting a thirteen-part international television series on fossils, exploration and fossil hunting. In 1997, the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. awarded him the 1st National Geographic Society Prize for Research and Exploration given for his research into human evolution. The citation on the awards reads In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the increase of geographic knowledge through his accomplishments in the field of palaeoanthropology. In the study of the origins of humanity Prof. Berger has epitomized the Society’s mission to seek new knowledge of our world. It is the Society’s desire to recognize both his past accomplishments and future potential in one of the most demanding of all the anthropological disciplines.
As a youth he was active in student politics and president of Georgia 4-H, involved in Future Farmers of America and Georgia Youth Conservationist of the Year for his work in conserving the endangered Gopher Tortoise. He is an Eagle Scout and received the Boy Scouts of America Honor Medal for saving a life in 1987.
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