Phillip Valentine Tobias, one of the world's leading experts on prehistoric human ancestors, will give a lecture at Cornell University on Thursday, April 17, at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The lecture is presented as part of the A.D. White Professors-at-Large series.

Tobias is professor of anatomy and human biology emeritus and honorary director of the Palaeo-Anthropology Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He will discuss the latest findings on hominid evolution in a lecture titled "Australopithecus After 72 Years: How Does the South African Apeman Stand Today?"

Tobias, 71, has been honored for his work in many areas, including hominid paleontology, human biological diversity and genetics, skeletal biology and comparative anatomy. He studied at the universities of the Witwatersrand and Cambridge and conducted postdoctoral study at the universities of Cambridge, Chicago and Michigan at Ann Arbor. In addition to holding many professorships and deanships at Witwatersrand, he has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Natal, Cambridge University and other institutions.

Tobias' honors include being nominated three times for a Nobel Prize, a dozen honorary doctorates and South Africa's Order for Meritorious Service. At recent meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in St. Louis, Tobias received the Charles R. Darwin Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award, which includes a bronze figure of Darwin sculpted by Professor Roberto Bertoia of Cornell's Department of Art.

Tobias has authored or co-authored 33 books and edited or co-edited eight others. In addition to his scholarly work, he was a major figure in opposing apartheid.

"Dr. Tobias is the leading palaeoanthropologist in the world today," said Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, a palaeoanthropologist and Cornell professor of ecology and systematics who has known Tobias for over 30 years and is his faculty sponsor during his Cornell visit. "His major contributions to palaeoanthropology include studies of the australopithecine fossils from Sterkfontein and Olduvai Gorge and Homo habilis fossils from various sites in East Africa," Kennedy said. "He is a distinguished anatomist and anthropologist."

Tobias will be at Cornell April 6 to 19 as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large. The Professors-at- Large Program began in 1965 to bring distinguished scholars to campus for formal and informal exchanges with faculty and students. Past professors-at-large, who serve six-year terms, have included historian George Mosse, natural ecologist M.S. Swaminathan, novelist Eudora Welty and philosopher Jacques Derrida.

Another professor-at-large on campus this semester is art critic Donald Kuspit, who will participate in a symposium on creativity April 18. As part of the symposium, Kuspit will give a public talk titled "The Psychoanalytic Construction of Creativity," at 2 p.m. in Barnes Hall.

For more information on Tobias' visit to Cornell, contact Kennedy at 254-4214.