Paul Thornell Baker (February 28, 1927 – November 29, 2007) was Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University, and was “one of the most influential biological anthropologists of his generation, contributing substantially to the transformation of the field from a largely descriptive to a hypothesis-driven science in the latter half of the 20th century.

[7] Baker conducted research into the high altitude adaptation of Andean Quechua-speaking residents began in Cuzco and Chinchero in 1962 and was extended to the District of Nuñoa on the Peruvian altiplano in 1964.

[8] "Baker was invited to participate in a 1964 Wenner-Gren Foundation symposium at Burg Wartenstein in Austria that was designed to plan the Human Adaptability (HA) research component of the IBP at the worldwide level.

[10] “As the Peruvian research was winding down in the mid-1970s and the synthesis of the work was completed, Baker initiated a new project on Pacific migration and modernization of Samoans in the context of health and diseases of Westernization.

The principal research questions centered on adaptation of Pacific Islanders to a Western life-style and its concomitant effects on health, which included a prevalence of obesity, adult-onset diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.