Jukka Jernvall

Jukka Jernvall studied biology at University of Helsinki, Finland. Paleontological field work in Turkey directed his interest to mammalian dentition and to the interplay between developmental biology and ecology. His dissertation research focused on the developmental mechanisms generating mammalian molar tooth diversity and he received a Ph.D. in Zoology from University of Helsinki in 1995. After his dissertation, he has been a research scientist at the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki and holds an adjunct position at the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Book. His current research continues to focus on the development of functionally central morphological features in teeth, and to analyze the adaptive significance of these features. Temporally, his interest includes the nature of the evolutionary process as inferred from the fossil record and recent mammalian communities.