Helen James

Helen Frances James (born May 22, 1956) is an American paleontologist and paleornithologist who has published extensively on the fossil birds of the Hawaiian Islands. She is the curator in charge of birds in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Early life James was born in a U.S. Army hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas on May 22, 1956, to two ecologists. She was brought up on a farm at the base of Kessler Mountain near Fayetteville, in the Arkansas Ozarks. At age eight, her family moved up slope to a custom-built house in the woods, where she developed an interest in natural history and archaeology. James' parents encouraged an appreciation for nature in her and her sisters, taking them on trips within the Ozarks, to the American southwest, and to Mexico. James found some Amerindian artifacts on these excursions, leading her to join the Northwest Arkansas Archaeological Association at age twelve.

During her studies, James was a summer volunteer in the Paleobiology Department of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

In 2000, James earned a DPhil in zoology from the University of Oxford, with a dissertation on the comparative osteology and phylogeny of the Hawaiian finches (Drepanidini). She has also conducted research on the fossil vertebrates and paleoecology of Madagascar, the comparative osteology and phylogenetics of perching birds, and the evolution of island waterfowl. and serves on the council of the American Institute of Biological Sciences as the member representative for the American Ornithologists' Union. She is also an affiliated faculty member at the University of Maryland with the biological sciences graduate program.

In 2005 and beyond, James was a curator of birds at the National Museum or Natural History.