Robert Corruccini

Robert Spencer Corruccini (born May 21, 1949) is an American anthropologist, distinguished professor, Smithsonian Institution Research Fellow, Human Biology Council Fellow (now the Human Biology Association), and the 1994 Outstanding Scholar at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. As a medical and dental anthropologist, Corruccini is most noted for his work on the theory of malocclusion and his extensive work in a slave cemetery at Newton Plantation in Barbados.

Academic life Corruccini earned his B.A. in Anthropology and Geology at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1971, and his Ph.D. in Anthropology and Paleontology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. He was named an Aleš Hrdlička Scholar in 1975-1976 by the Smithsonian Institution, later becoming a communications coordinator for the Universities Space Research Association in Boulder, Colorado. later earning a full professorship in 1986.

Human dentition As a dental anthropologist, Corruccini is most noted for his work on malocclusion, though his research is not limited to any particular aspect of human or non-human primate dentition or biology. Much of his early fieldwork in dentition and many of his 250-plus publications immigrants, Australian Aborigines, and on the Indian subcontinent, with this research being funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Leakey Foundation. the Pima Tribe, natives of Peru, hominoids, and modern Chinese.

Theory of malocclusion Corruccini's long term research into the origins of malocclusion led him to the conclusion that not all cases could be solely attributed to genetic factors. In 1982, Corruccini and Beecher published the results of a study on squirrel monkeys that revealed that diet may play a significant role in occlusal health. Corruccini later asserted that the consumption of a western diet, or "Industrial Diet" may be one of the factors responsible for the swelling epidemic of malocclusions now appearing in modern human populations in western countries. Subsequent studies conducted by other scientists confirm the rise of malocclusions in modern humans.

In his review of Noel T. Boaz's, Evolving Health: The Origins of Illness and How the Modern World is Making Us Sick, Corruccini states,

Research at Newton plantation Not long after Corruccini's arrival in Carbondale, he commenced a collaborative research study with Jerome Handler focusing on slave populations who were buried in Barbados circa 1660-1820, Corruccini and Handler's first publication together on the Newton sugar plantation was based on a study of the slaves' dentition. This and subsequent research was funded by associations such as the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Southern Illinois University Office of Development and Research, and the National Geographic Society.