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Alexandra Kralick

she/her

Email:
akralick@sas.upenn.edu
https://www.alexandrakralick.com/

Bio

Bio Dr. Alexandra E. Kralick is interdisciplinary biological anthropologist offering a creative, theoretically-engaged, innovative scientific inquiry into the ape skeleton. Sher received her Ph.D. here at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology in 2023, where she studied life history and functional morphology of sex differences in the orangutan skeleton. She developed a novel holistic osteobiographic methodology to identify the morphology and maturation of two different types of adult male orangutans, flanged and unflanged, in museum collections. Her work engages with contextual reflexivity, decolonial theory, queer feminist theory, and discussions of ethics and equity in great ape skeletal remains research. Her work has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Leakey Foundation. After leaving University of Pennsylvania, Alexandra went on to become a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. You can follow her work at www.AlexandraKralick.com.

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 2023 B.S., Biological Anthropology, The George Washington University, 2014

Research Interests

Great apes • Orangutan Osteology • Life History • Functional Morphology • Ethics of Great Ape Remains • Queer Feminist Biology

Selected Publications

Alexandra E. Kralick, Babette Zemel, Phillip Lin, Clara Nolan, Matthew W. Tocheri. (2024) Relative leg-to-arm skeletal strength proportions in orangutans by species and sex. Journal of Human Evolution. 188: 103496.

Alexandra E. Kralick, Caitlin A. O’Connell, Meredith L. Bastian, Morgan K. Hoke, Babette S. Zemel, Theodore G. Schurr, Matthew W. Tocheri. (2023). Beyond Dimorphism: Body Size Variation among Adult Orangutans is not Dichotomous by Sex. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 63(4):907-921. doi: 10.1093/icb/icad015

Alexandra E. Kralick, Stephanie Canington, Andrea Eller, and Kate McGrath. (2023). Specimens as Individuals: Four interventions and recommendations for great ape skeletal collections research and curation. Evolutionary Anthropology. 1:20. doi: 10.1002/evan.22002

Alexandra E. Kralick and Kate McGrath. (2021). More severe stress markers in the teeth of flanged versus unflanged orangutans (Pongo spp.). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 176(4):625-637. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24387

Alexandra E. Kralick and Babette S. Zemel. (2020). Evolutionary perspectives on the developing skeleton and implications for lifelong health. Frontiers in Endocrinology. 11: 99. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2020.00099

 

Public Science Writing

Alexandra Kralick. (2023). “When Ape Sex Isn’t Simple: One type of male orangutan has perplexed scientists because they run counter to long-held binary expectations of sex differences in the skeleton.” Anthropology News. March 14. https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/when-ape-sex-isnt-simple/.

Alexandra Kralick and Kate McGrath. (2023). Habitat Destruction Is Threatening an Aspect of Orangutan Biology. Frontiers for Young Minds. 11:914617. doi: 10.3389/frym.2023.914617

Alexandra Kralick. (2018). “What Our Skeletons Say About the Sex Binary”. SAPIENS. November 9. https://www.sapiens.org/body/intersex-biological-sex/ Republished in The Atlantic on November 11 as “Is Gender Written Into Your Skeleton? The study of human bones complicates a strict binary definition of sex.”

Graduation Year

2023
Interests

Research Interests

Evolutionary Anthropology
Gender and Sexuality Studies

Dissertation Title

Orangutan Osteobiography: Skeletal Morphology and Flangling in Pongo Spp

Graduate Status

Graduate Alumni