Cynthia Beall, co-author of two articles in National Geographic magazine, is an expert on the adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia of the indigenous populations of the Andean, Tibetan, and East African plateaus.
She is the S. Idell Pyle Professor of Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Beall's research interests in physical anthropology are in the broad area of how people adapt to their environments, both physical and sociocultural, and the causes and consequences of worldwide variation in human biology. She has conducted over two dozen field research projects in Peru, Bolivia, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, and Ethiopia with funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society Committee on Research and Exploration, the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China, IREX, and others.
Beall's professional service includes serving as chair of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Biological Science and as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on International Scientific Organizations and serving on the editorial boards of Human Biology, Wilderness Medicine, and High Altitude Medicine and Biology.
