Amber Heard-Booth, PhD

Amber Heard-Booth, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Division of Human Anatomy and serves as Anatomy Site Director of the College of Human Medicine’s Grand Rapids campus. She teaches gross anatomy and human prosection courses and works with the clinical simulation team to integrate anatomy instruction into simulated patient care experiences.

Dr. Heard-Booth’s educational background is in the field of Biological Anthropology, with specialization in the study of primate functional morphology and locomotor biomechanics. Over the course of her training, Dr. Heard-Booth has engaged in research that spans a wide range of topics, including variation in mammalian eye size, patterns of primate growth, and the unique aspects of primate quadrupedalism. Her dissertation research addressed the morphological basis of variation in human longitudinal arch height and its relationship to foot function.

Although her teaching responsibilities at MSU-CHM focus on human anatomy, Dr. Heard-Booth is broadly trained as a comparative and evolutionary anatomist. She gained extensive experience preparing and studying vertebrate fossils at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History and the Texas Memorial Museum where she worked as a Vertebrate Fossil Preparator. Dr. Heard-Booth has prepared fossils that range in size and geologic age, including micro-mammals from the Eocene of North America, protocetid whales from the Eocene of Pakistan, and the holotype specimen of the basal sauropod Sarahsaurus from the Jurassic of Arizona. Her background in comparative and evolutionary anatomy informs her understanding and teaching of human anatomy in interesting ways.

Education

B.A. Anthropology, University of Michigan
M.S. Forensic Science (Anthropology), Michigan State University
Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin