Prof. Dr. John Nyakatura

John Nyakatura studied Biology and Geography at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany. After completing a degree to become a secondary school teacher, he decided to persue an academic career and earned his doctoral degree in Zoology with a dissertation on the evolution and functional morphology of sloths.
As a postdoc he conducted research on the form-function-interface in the musculo-skeletal system of salamanders, lizards, birds, and primates. He routinely collaborated with paleontologists, biomechanists, roboticists, and scientific illustrators.
Since being appointed as a joint juniorprofessor at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2014, John Nyakatura leads a group concerned with the functional morphology of vertebrates and with historical and epistemic aspects of image use in his field. In 2019 he became a visiting professor at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.
Symbolic Material (Principal Investigator)
Material Form Function (Principal Investigator)
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Institut für Biologie
Philippstraße 13, Haus 2
10115 Berlin
Articles
Nyakatura, J. A., Baumgarten, R., Baum, D., Stark, H., Youlatos, D. 2019. »Muscle internal structure revealed by contrast-enhanced μCT and fibre recognition: The hindlimb extensors of an arboreal and a fossorial squirrel.« Mammalian Biology, 99, 71-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2019.10.007
Wölfer, J., Amson, E., Arnold, P., Botton‐Divet, L., Fabre, A., Heteren, A. H., Nyakatura, J. A. 2019. »Femoral morphology of sciuromorph rodents in light of scaling and locomotor ecology.« Journal of Anatomy, 234, (6): 731-747. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.12980
Montañez-Rivera, I., Nyakatura, J. A., Amson, E. 2018. »Bone cortical compactness in ‘tree sloths’ reflects convergent evolution.« Journal of Anatomy, 233, (5): 580-591. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.12873
Talks & Presentations
Nyakatura, J. A., Sauer, C. The Anatomy of Movement and Nature's Design. Vertebrate Function, Evolution, and Scaling. Talk at MoA Talks, weißensee academy of art, Berlin. 19 November 2019. https://www.matters-of-activity.de/en/activities/938/moa-talks