Kevin Uno
Associate Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, Affiliated Faculty Member of Earth and Planetary Sciences
My research focuses on understanding major transitions in terrestrial ecosystems over the last ~25 million years, including the spread of grassland ecosystems and the impact on human evolution.
Kevin Uno is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and EPS Affiliated Faculty member at Harvard University. He received a BA in Geology from Carleton College and after stints in a ski town, working as a deckhand on a tall ship, and working as an environmental consultant, he returned to academia and completed his MS and PhD in Geology at the University of Utah. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University from 2013-2016 and continued on as an Assistant then Associate Research Professor until 2023, when he moved to Harvard University.
Kevin is a paleoecologist whose primary research focus is on exploring the role of climate and environmental change on mammalian and human evolution. To do this, he uses stable isotope and organic geochemical methods to reconstruct climate, vegetation, and mammalian diets from the Neogene (~24 Ma) to present. He has led or co-authored a series of papers that linked dietary changes in mammals and hominins to late Neogene vegetation change. Since 2013, he has focused on development and application of molecular biomarker analyses on terrestrial and marine sediments to reconstruct ecosystem structure, hydroclimate, and fire in ancient environments.
Contact Info
11 Divinity Avenue. Cambridge MA 02138
kevinuno@g.harvard.edu