At Washington University
Richard Smith joined the faculty at Washington University in 1984 and served as a professor and chair of the Department of Orthodontics, in the former School of Dental Medicine. He joined the Department of Anthropology in 1991. He founded the Program in Applied Statistics and Computation, now the Center for Applied Statistics, at Washington University, and he served as its first director from 2002-04.
Among undergraduates, Smith is famous for his course "Introduction to Human Evolution," which was one of the most popular classes on campus until his appointment as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2008. The course features topics from the historical development of the theory of evolution, fossil evidence, the morphological features of primates, to the beginnings of modern humans and is noted by many students to be particularly engaging, due in part to Smith's dynamic teaching style.
Read more about this topic: Richard J. Smith (anthropologist)
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