Hanken received his bachelor's degree and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
He is also a photographer, his photos having been published in Natural History and Audubon among other publications.
Hanken is also one of the people involved in the creation of the Encyclopedia of Life.
Among books by Hanken is The Skull: Functional and Evolutionary Mechanisms (University of Chicago Press) written with Brian Keith Hall.
In popular culture, Prof James Hanken has appeared on an episode of a show called Da Ali G Show, where Sacha Baron Cohen interviews James as a fictional character called Ali G.[1]