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Julia van Beesel


Guest

Department of Human Origins
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig

e-mail: julia_van_beesel@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de

Research interests
Collaborative projects
Career and Education
Publications

Current job title

Postdoctoral Researcher at KU Leuven, DFG Walter Benjamin Fellow

Research interests

My research interests focus on the form-function relationship and its impact on evolution. My focus lies on enhancing our understanding shoulder evolution in hominoids and specifically in hominins. I aim to develop a toolkit that facilitates functional interpretations based on hominin fossil remains.

Collaborative projects

I am currently working on a collaborative project together with TU Delft and the MPI EVA (Philipp Gunz) to create a workflow that streamlines and facilitates the development of new specimen-specific musculoskeletal models. We aim to use the finalized workflow to create musculoskeletal models based on hominin fossil remains.

Career and Education

03/2023-03/2025Postdoctoral researcher and Walter Benjamin Fellow at KU Lven
07/2022-03/2023Postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft
07/2022Ph.D. degree at University Leipzig
09/2017-07/2022Doctoral researcher at MPI EVA
08/2016M.Sc. Friedrich-Schiller University Jena
09/2013B.Sc. Friedrich-Schiller University Jena

Publications

van Beesel, J., Melillo, S., & Vereecke, E. (2025). 3D reconstruction of shoulder muscles in hominoid primates: Correlating scapular attachment areas with muscle volume. Journal of Anatomy, 256(5), 709-723.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

Niederschuh, S. J., van Beesel, J., & Schmidt, M. (2022). The role of sensory feedback from carpal sinus hairs in locomotor kinematics of rats (Rattus norvegicus, Rodentia) during walking on narrow substrates. Zoology, 155: 126055.
DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

van Beesel, J., Hutchinson, J. R., Hublin, J.-J., & Melillo, S. M. (2022). Comparison of the arm‐lowering performance between Gorilla and Homo through musculoskeletal modeling. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 178(3), 399-416.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

Demuth, O. E., Wiseman, A. L. A., van Beesel, J., Mallison, H., & Hutchinson, J. R. (2022). Three-dimensional polygonal muscle modelling and line of action estimation in living and extinct taxa. Scientific Reports, 12: 3358.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

van Beesel, J. (2022). Biomechanical consequences of variation in shoulder morphology in the Hominoidea. PhD Thesis, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig.
Open Access    BibTeX   Endnote   

van Beesel, J., Hutchinson, J. R., Hublin, J.-J., & Melillo, S. M. (2021). Exploring the functional morphology of the Gorilla shoulder through musculoskeletal modelling. Journal of Anatomy, 239(1), 207-227.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote