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 Dr. Meave Leakey, "the current standard-bearer for the Leakey fossil-hunting dynasty", was born Meave Epps in London in 1942. Her early education took place in convents and boarding schools. She later attended the University of North Wales, obtaining her B.S. in Zoology and Marine Zoology and her Ph.D. in Zoology.
In 1965, while studying for her Ph.D., she took a position at the Tigoni Primate Research Centre, directed by Louis Leakey and his wife Mary Leakey located outside of Nairobi. In 1968, she finished her Ph.D. and a year later was invited by their son Richard Leakey to join his field expedition investigating a newly discovered site at Koobi Fora, on the eastern shores of Kenya's Lake Turkana. This was the beginning of her long-term involvement with the highly successful Turkana Basin Research Project. In 1970, Meave married Richard Leakey and had two children: Louise, born in 1972 and Samira, born in 1974.
Since 1969 Meave Leakey has worked at the National Museums of Kenya. She became Head of the Division of Paleontology in 1982, and held that position until 2001. In 1989, she became the co-coordinator of the National Museums of Kenya's paleontological field research in the Turkana Basin. Since her appointment, field research in Turkana has focused on finding evidence of the very earliest human ancestors. In 1994, remains of some of the earliest hominids known were discovered. Not only do these finds represent a new species, but the dating of the find at four million years old has called for revising the accepted timeline for the evolution of hominids.
In 1999, Meave Leakey impressed the world with her discovery of a 3.5 million-year-old skull and partial jaw believed to belong to new branch of early hominids. Dr. Leakey named the new genus Kenyanthropus platyops (flat-faced man of Kenya). This remarkable discovery, announced in the journal Nature, has profound implications in understanding the origins of mankind. In its front-page story on March 22, 2001, The New York Times wrote that the discovery "threatens to overturn the prevailing view that a single line of descent stretched through the early stages of human ancestry.
Meave Leakey has written more than fifty scientific articles and books, and continues to be a highly visible and significant contributor to the study of human origins. She is currently collaborating with her daughter, Louise Leakey, co-leading excavations including the one that led to the discovery of Kenyanthropus platyops.
Resources:
http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/foundation/f1_6.jsp
http://www.leakey.com/meave_leakey.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meave_Leakey
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