Newcastle University

Introduction

My research focuses on reconstructing dental development using incremental markers in dental hard tissues. I utilize polarized light microscopy to reconstruct the timing of dental development, which correlates with important life history variables such as weaning and first reproduction. I am currently working on a variety of mammals, from modern humans and nonhuman primates to extinct elephants. I am also working on several 55 million year old fossil species, including some of the earliest primates.

Roles and Responsibilities

Chair, BDS Stage 2 Part 1 Examinations Committee

Qualifications

PhD 2001, New York University
MA 1995, New York University
BA summa cum laude, 1991, Hunter College of the City University of New York

Previous Positions

Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Oxford College of Emory University, USA

Memberships

American Association of Physical Anthropologists
Anatomical Society
Association of Basic Science Teachers in Dentistry
British Society for Oral and Dental Research
Dental Anthropology Association
International Association for Dental Research
International Primatological Society
North of England Odontological Society
Palaeontological Association
Primate Society of Great Britain
Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists

Research Interests

Dental hard tissue histology, life history evolution, vertebrate palaeontology.

Member of the Centre for Oral Health Research.

Current Work

I am conducting research in several overlapping areas. 

With colleagues from the Institute of Health and Society and the NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory,  I am looking at how trace elements, such as lead and zinc, are incorporated into dental tissues. The timing of their incorporation, as revealed by incremental growth lines in histological tooth sections, reveals the history of environmental exposure

I am conducting research into the evolution of life history and dental development in fossil mammals from the Paleocene and Eocene of North America with colleagues from the ESRF in France, Western Michigan University, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of California at Berkeley Museum of Paleontology in the USA. We are reconstructing the timing of growth and development in archaic ungulates and extant and fossil euarchontans, including early primates, through the analysis of growth increments in fossil enamel and dentine. This work is funded by the Royal Society.

I am also examining the timing of molar formation in fossil proboscideans in collaboration with Dr. Timothy Bromage of New York University College of Dentistry. We are developing a method for scaling life histories in extinct elephants in a manner similar to that used for the primate fossil record.

Postgraduate Supervision

Co-supervisor (with Dr Nick Jepson, Dr Khaled Khalaf, University of Aberdeen and Dr Andrea Cardini, Universitá di Modena e Reggio Emilia) for Ibrahim Al-Shahrani, Child Dental Health & Institute of Health & Society. PhD project title: 3D Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Hypodontia Subjects

Co-supervisor (with Professor Tanja Pless-Mulloli, Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, Dr Susan Hodgson, Imperial College London, and Professor Tom Shepherd, Earth Sciences, Durham University) for Charuwan Manmee, Institute of Health and Society. PhD project title: Lead levels in teeth as a measure of long term lead exposure in children.

Lead supervisor: Dr Khadega Bozaripa, Oral Biology and Institute of Health and Society. MPhil project title: An Odontometric and Histological Study of Fluctuating Dental Asymmetry of Human Premolar Teeth

Esteem Indicators

Associate Editor, Journal of Human Evolution and American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Guest speaker, Society of Gynecologic Investigation annual meeting, Glasgow, 2009.

Funding

Royal Society Research Grant: Dental development and life history in early primates from the Paleocene/Eocene boundary.

Undergraduate Teaching

BDS Programme, Stages 1 and 2 (Basic Sciences in Dentistry); Course Leader: Introduction to Dentistry, Teacher for Histology, Embryology and Development.

• Shepherd TJ, Dirks W, Manmee C, Hodgson S, Banks DA, Averley P, Pless-Mulloli T. Reconstructing the life-time lead exposure in children using dentine in deciduous teeth. Science of the Total Environment 2012, 425, 214–222.
• Dirks W, Bromage TG, Agenbroad LD. The duration and rate of molar plate formation in Palaeoloxodon cypriotes and Mammuthus columbi from dental histology. Quaternary International 2012, 255, 79-85.
• Dirks W, Humphrey LT, Dean MC, Jeffries TE. The relationship of accentuated lines in enamel to weaning stress in juvenile baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis). Folia Primatologica 2010, 81(4), 207-223.
• Anemone RL, Dirks W. An anachronistic Clarkforkian mammal fauna from the Paleocene Fort Union Formation (Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, USA). Geologica Acta 2009, 7(1-2), 113-124.
• Bromage TG, Lacruz RS, Hogg R, Goldman HM, McFarlin SC, Warshaw J, Dirks W, Perez Ochoa A, Smolyar I, Enlow DH, Boyde A. Lamellar bone is an incremental tissue reconciling enamel rhythms, body size, and organismal life history. Calcified Tissue International 2009, 84(5), 388-404.
• Dirks W, Anemone RL, Holroyd PA, Reid DJ, Walton P. Phylogeny, life history and the timing of molar crown formation in two archaic ungulates, Meniscotherium and Phenacodus (Mammalia, “Condylarthra”). In: Koppe, T; Meyer, G; Alt, KW, ed. Comparative Dental Morphology. Basel: Karger, 2009, pp. 3-8.
• Humphrey L, Dirks W, Dean M, Jeffries T. Tracking dietary transitions in weanling baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis) using strontium/calcium ratios in enamel. Folia Primatologica 2008, 79(4), 197-212.
• Dirks W, Bowman JE. Life history theory and dental development in four species of catarrhine primates. Journal of Human Evolution 2007, 53(3), 309-320.
• Dirks W. Effect of Diet on Dental Development in Four Species of Catarrhine Primates. American Journal of Primatology 2003, 61(1), 29-40.
• Bromage TG, Dirks W, Erdument-Bromage H, Huck M, Kulmer O, Oener R, Sandrock O, Schrenk F. A life history and climate change solution to the evolution and extinction of insular dwarfs: a Cypriot experience. In: Waldren, W.H., Ensenyat, W.H, ed. World Islands in Prehistory: International Insular Investigations. V Deia International Conference of Prehistory. Oxford, UK: Archaeopress, 2002, pp.420-427.
• Dirks W, Reid DJ, Jolly CJ, Phillips-Conroy JE, Brett FL. Out of the mouths of baboons: Stress, life history, and dental development in the Awash National Park hybrid zone, Ethiopia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 2002, 118(3), 239-252.
• Dirks W. Histological reconstruction of dental development and age at death in a juvenile gibbon (Hylobates lar). Journal of Human Evolution 1998, 35(4-5), 411-425.