Christopher Bae, a UH Mānoa anthropology professor who made global headlines with the recent discovery of a new human species, found his career pathway while searching for answers about his past.
Adopted from South Korea into a Caucasian family, Bae began digging into his past when he attended college.
“I was always interested in my roots, because I always looked different from my adoptive family, so I was always curious,” Bae said.
In his junior year at Stony Brook University, Bae decided to partake in a study exchange program in South Korea to learn about his ancestry.
While in South Korea, Bae not only discovered cultural aspects, but found a new interest when he took an anthropology course at Yonsei University in Seoul.
“I really got interested in anthropology, more generally, especially paleoanthropology in my field, because we’re trying to reconstruct a puzzle without all the pieces,” said Bae.
Bae came to the realization that he could turn this passion into a potential career, and is still, 30 years later, using paleoanthropology to reconstruct eastern Asia history.
Bae had a recent, major breakthrough involving a fossil, found in China in the 1970s, from an ancient human ancestor known as Homo juluensis. Bae aided in the reconstructing of fossils to recognize the new hominin.
The discovery made headlines around the world, and Bae’s work was featured in news reports on the BBC, CNN, the New York Post, the Daily Mail in London, and Nature.
His reconstruction of ancient fossils allows him to understand the complexities of his own past.
Paleoanthropology is mostly concentrated in Europe and Africa, pushing Bae’s determination to expand the field in Asia.
“And so one of the things that I’ve been working on, spending a lot of time on for the past 30 years, is really helping my colleagues better understand their materials, but also get their information out there, and it’s helping to really build those aspects of it,” said Bae.
In just 30 years Bae has already been successful in the development of paleoanthropology in eastern Asia—and with these strong aspirations, he plans to keep moving forward for another 30 years.
“It helps me identify who I am by working on this,” Bae said. “You know, we’re never going to have all the pieces to the puzzle, yeah? And I’m never gonna have all the pieces to my own puzzle, right? But it allows me to be more comfortable with who I am.”
