Michael Blakey

Biography

Michael L. Blakey (born February 23, 1953) is an American biological anthropologist and bioarchaeologist who specializes in the biological effects of historical and structural inequity on African-descended populations. He is best known as the scientific director and principal investigator of the New York African Burial Ground Project from 1992 to 2009, a landmark bioarchaeological study of more than 400 colonial-era skeletons that documented the physical toll of enslavement on Africans in colonial New York. Blakey is currently National Endowment for the Humanities professor at the College of William & Mary, where he directs the Institute for Historical Biology. Previously, he was a professor at Howard University and the curator of Howard University's Montague Cobb Biological Anthropology Laboratory. Previously, he was a professor at Howard University and the founder and curator of Howard University's W. Montague Cobb Biological Anthropology Laboratory. In 2021, he received the President's Award of the American Anthropological Association, presented by AAA President Akhil Gupta in recognition of his work on the African Burial Ground and his advocacy for decolonizing the anthropological canon. That same year he received the Legacy Award of the Association of Black Anthropologists. In 2022, he received the Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence at William & Mary.

Bio from Wikipedia