Jeffrey Laitman

Jeffrey Todd Laitman (born October 13, 1951) is an American anatomist and physical anthropologist whose science has combined experimental, comparative, and paleontological studies to understand the development and evolution of the human upper respiratory and vocal tract regions.

In the area of development, Laitman and colleagues have made considerable strides in investigating change in the breathing, swallowing and vocalizing patterns of human infants.

[9][10] Laitman and colleagues have also pioneered new approaches to introducing "team-work," "team-responsibility" and "team-teaching," that bring these essential components of physician development early into the medical school curriculum.

[13] Laitman took his bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, from which he graduated summa cum laude with honors in physical anthropology and history in 1973.

Laitman is also a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, and member of the faculty of the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), a research-training program supported by the National Science Foundation.

Notable amongst these are: comparative anatomists, Joy Reidenberg, Ph.D and Samuel Marquez, Ph.D.; neurobiologist Patrick J. Gannon, Ph.D.; otologist/neurobiologist, David R. Friedland, M.D., Ph.D; anthropologists Douglas Broadfield, Ph.D. and Anthony Pagano, Ph.D.; developmental anatomist Armand Balboni, Ph.D; head and neck cancer surgeon, Eric Genden, M.D.

Laitman also serves as associate editor and editor for functional and evolutionary morphology for The Anatomical Record, and in that role has overseen many special issues of that journal, such as ones on aquatic mammals,[18] paranasal sinuses,[19] dinosaurs,[20] primate functional anatomy,[21] new world monkey evolution,[22] the anatomy underlying new advances in cochlear and vestibular implants and the evolution of primate special senses.