Eleanor Scerri

As an archaeological scientist and paleoanthropologist, my work centres on multidisciplinary perspectives of human evolution and its cultural manifestations. I currently head the ‘Lise Meitner’ Pan-African Evolution research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Our present research explores the role of Africa’s western and tropical rainforests in the deep human past, how the Saharo-Arabian arid belt modulated the earliest human migrations, the first anthropogenic management of pre-agricultural ecologies, the cultural dimension of metapopulations, and island effects on biology and culture. I bring an interdisciplinary perspective to AGYA that straddles earth, biological and human sciences, with a particular geographical focus on the Arab world. Within AGYA, I network and collaborate with a vast array of colleagues whose research relates to mine in diverse ways, and to contribute to advancing research around the key themes of AGYA’s working groups.

AGYA serves as a major hub for scientists based in Germany and the Arab world.

Beyond allowing us to effectively network, AGYA also facilitates the cross-fertilisation of scientific ideas within a multicultural context. My motivation to join AGYA lies within the interstices of this scientific and cultural creativity, which first stimulates ideas and then allows us to turn them into tangible, innovative projects. The benefits can be unexpected, from curiosity-driven blue skies research to novel cross-disciplinary partnerships.

Academic career