Dr Ashleigh Wiseman awarded ERC Starting Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the successful scientists who have been awarded ERC Starting Grants. Dr Ashleigh Wiseman has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant for her project STEPS: Biomechanical simulations of hominin locomotion across complex terrains. The project will be based at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.

Dr Wiseman obtained a MA (Hons) Archaeology from the University of Edinburgh, MSc Human Anatomy and Evolution from the Hull York Medical School, followed by a PhD in Biological Anthropology in 2019 from Liverpool John Moores University. After her PhD she held a postdoctoral role in evolutionary biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College, before commencing a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at the University of Cambridge (2021-2024). From 2024-2025, Dr Wiseman held the post of Lecturer (Teaching) in Palaeoanthropology at UCL. Dr Wiseman's interests pivot around the reconstruction of movement in extinct species using advanced 3D modelling techniques.

The project STEPS: Biomechanical simulations of hominin locomotion across complex terrains will begin later in 2025. STEPS will investigate how our earliest human ancestors evolved to walk on two legs. Understanding the origins of bipedalism is one of the central challenges in human evolution, yet the anatomical and biomechanical transitions involved remain poorly understood. STEPS will use advanced musculoskeletal modelling of both fossil hominins and living primates to reconstruct the form and function of lower limb muscles over the past six million years. By combining 3D imaging, biomechanical simulation, and comparative anatomy, the project will test how different locomotor behaviours shaped the evolution of the human body. STEPS will shed new light on the evolutionary steps that made us human.