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Dental Anthropology  2019 │ Volume 32 │ Issue 02 

 
Dear friends and colleagues, 
 
It is with sadness that I write to inform you of the 
passing of Professor Grant Townsend on May 25th, 
after battling illness over the last 12 months. 
Many of you will know Grant from his involvement 
in the Dental Anthropology Association, and from 
his attendance at ISDM and AAPA meetings over 
the last 40 years.  Many of you will also have known 
him as a collaborator, co-author, supervisor, mentor 
and friend. 

It’s difficult to sum up the depth and breadth of 
Grant’s contributions to the field of dental anthro-
pology in a few short paragraphs, but some of his 
key achievements include holding the Chair of Den-
tal Science at the University of Adelaide for over 20 
years; work on the collection and analysis of a semi-
nal longitudinal data set from the Yuendumu people 
of central Australia, with Murray Barrett and Tas 
Brown; initiating a series of longitudinal Australian 
twin cohorts to quantify the role of genes and the 
environment in the development of various morpho-
logical features; publishing over 200 peer-reviewed 
articles, as well as numerous books and book chap-
ters; and sitting on the editorial boards of many dis-
tinguished journals, including Dental Anthropology 
from 1997-2002. 

Some of the many awards Grant received during 
his career included the Medaille de la ville de Paris 
for contributions to research in the field of dental 
anthropology; the IADR(ANZ) Alan Docking Sci-
ence Award for outstanding scientific achievement 
in the field of dental research, and the IADR Distin-
guished Scientist Award for Craniofacial Biology 
Research in recognition of outstanding contributions 
to research over a significant period of time. 

A great collaborator, Grant spent time in many 
research centres internationally over the course of 
his career, including sabbaticals in Finland and the 
United Kingdom, and visits throughout South-East 
Asia and the United States. During these times he 
developed long-standing friendships with other 

members of our community, many of whom would 
later go on to spend time in the Murray Barrett Re-
search Laboratory in Adelaide working on the col-
lections Grant curated. 

Grant’s enthusiasm for dental anthropology never 
waned, and he continued to work on projects arising 
from the longitudinal cohorts up until early this 
year, many of which remain ongoing.  Grant will be 
missed by his extended research family at the Crani-
ofacial Biology Research Group in Adelaide, and by 
those he worked with around the world. 
 
TOBY HUGHES 
Adelaide Dental School  
Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences 
Adelaide, South Australia 
5005 Australia 

 

LETTER OF OBITUARY: 
Grant Townsend