Philip Lieberman's central interest is the nature and evolution of the biological bases of human language and cognition. His studies, thirty years ago, of the limitations placed on the speech capabilities of living apes by their anatomy opened up a new field of study. His inferences concerning the speech capabilities of Neanderthals are still the subject of lively debate. Since the 1980s he has focused on the properties of the brain that make human speech, language, and cognition possible. His current work focuses on the deep subcortical structures of the brain that work together with the traditional cortical areas of the brain, Broca's and Wernicke's areas together with many other neural structures to confer these human capabilities. He has proposed that brain mechanisms that were initially adapted for motor control were modified by Darwinian processes to make higher cognitive and linguistic ability possible. The studies that he and his colleagues are conducting to test these premises include tests of patients having Parkinson's Disease and climbers ascending Mount Everest whose brains are stressed by the lack of oxygen at extreme altitudes. He continues to study the aspects of speech that convey emotion and linguistic information. Students who are interested in human evolution and the nature of the brain are welcome to participate in these projects. The findings of these studies and those of many other linguistic, neurophysiologic and genetic studies refute the linguistic theories of Noam Chomsky that have been popularized by Steven Pinker. His 1998 book for non-specialists is, "Eve spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution." In his most recent book, "Human Language and Our Reptilian Brain: The Subcortical Bases of Syntax and Thought, "he demonstrates that, contrary to Chomsky and Pinker, the brain bases of language, thinking and motor control are intertwined. His review article, "On the nature and evolution of the neural bases of language," will appear in The Yearbook of Physical Anthropology."

He received a Guggenheim Fellowship, presented the 1990 Nijmegen Lectures of the Max Planck Institut fur Psycholoinguistic, was a NATO Visiting Professor, and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Psychological association, and the American Anthropological Association. He also holds an appointment at Brown University as Professor of Anthropology.

He is also an avid photographer and has documented traditional Tibetan life in remote regions of Himalayan Nepal, India, and Tibet. His photographs are in several museum collections; he was one of the 20 artists selected for exhibition in the Museum of the Rhode

Lieberman, P. (1984). The Biology and Evolution of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lieberman, P. (1990). Uniquely Human: The evolution of speech, thought and selfless behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lieberman, P. (1998). Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Lieberman, P. (2000). Human language and our reptilian brain: The Subcortical bases of speech, syntax and thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lieberman, P. (in press). Towards an evolutionary biology of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Island School of Design's juried competition, "Contemporary Art in Rhode Island." His other great passion is hiking and climbing. His photographs illustrate his wife's hiking guidebooks and many articles on the Alps and Himalayas.

His current sponsored research involves a study funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute that is directed at perfecting a method whereby cognitive deficits resulting from damage to subcortical basal ganglia may be remotely monitored by means of acoustic analysis of speech. This involves studies of mountain climbers ascending Mount Everest and of Parkinson's Disease patients. The project is directed towards NASA's projected manned mission to Mars in 2020, but it will have many applications on earth, including the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and monitoring aircrews for cognitive dysfunction induced by lack of oxygen. His other sponsored project is funded by the Getty Foundation for the creation of a DVD documenting the 15th century Tibetan Buddhist wall paintings of Lo Manthang, a remote temple complex in Nepal, which he photographed for the Getty Foundation in 1993 and 1994. Lieberman also consults for many organizations on speech analysis and voice identification, including the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).