[3] He had a multi-decade career at Arizona State University, first as a professor in the Anthropology Department and then as the Director of the Institute of Human Origins and Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.
Kimbel obtained his PhD from Kent State University, and served as Associate Curator and Head of Physical Anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History from 1981 to 1985.
[4] In 1985, he began work for the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, California, under the leadership of prominent physical anthropologist Donald Johanson, and later had a long career at Arizona State University.
[5] Kimbel was well known for leading paleoanthropological fieldwork, including at the Hadar hominin site in the Afar Region, Ethiopia, from which he described many important fossil discoveries.
He also worked on other famous paleoanthropological sites including Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and Amud Cave, Israel.