Anthropologist, anatomist, and physician Noel Boaz was born in Martinsville, Virginia, was educated in Martinsville public schools, and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1970. Three years later he completed his undergraduate studies as a University Major in Physical Anthropology at the University of Virginia, with summer work at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley. He then went on to Berkeley for graduate work where he completed his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. His doctoral thesis was on paleoecology of the early hominids of the Omo Valley, Ethiopia.  Among Dr. Boaz’s contributions to paleoanthropology have been his co- discovery and anatomical description of a 1.8-million-year-old skull of Homo habilis in Ethiopia, the first documentation of the species outside of Olduvai Gorge; determination of the first excavation-based population densities of African early hominids; a re-assessment of the early African species,  Australopithecus afarensis, to which the famous “Lucy” fossil belongs; discovery of the first Miocene fossil higher primates from Libya; the discovery of a new Pliocene-aged fauna with associated stone tools  from the Western Rift Valley of DR Congo, and a re-analysis of the Pleistocene Chinese cave site of Zhoukoudian (“Dragon Bone Hill”) containing the remains of “Beijing Man” (Homo erectus).

In 1984 Dr. Boaz incorporated the nonprofit Boaz Foundation in Virginia and served as its first President. The Foundation opened the Virginia Museum of Natural History in 1985 and operated it until 1989 when it turned over the museum, its collections, land, and buildings to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Dr. Boaz served as Founding Director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History, was its primary fundraiser, established its first publication series, led the legislative battle for its recognition as the state museum, which passed both houses of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously, and was the primary author of those sections of the Code of Virginia that established the museum as a state agency. He served as VMNH Curator of Biological Anthropology in 1990.

In 1991 Dr. Boaz founded the nonprofit International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research and in 2007 the nonprofit Integrative Centers for Science and Medicine, both of which are located in Oregon and which he still directs. He has worked at a number of universities including UCLA, New York University, George Washington University, and Ross University School of Medicine where he is currently Professor of Anatomy.

Dr. Boaz went to medical school in 1995 and earned his M.D. degree from Saba University School of Medicine in the Netherlands Antilles.  In 1999 he worked for nine months with Physicians for Human Rights investigating genocide in Bosnia. He became one of the leaders of the new field of evolutionary medicine and published a ground-breaking  book, Evolving Health, in 2002. He has a long-term interest in improving the health of indigenous peoples and is working to develop a medical school in the United States dedicated to training Native Americans.

In 2006 Dr. Boaz re-instituted his paleoanthropological research project in Libya, expanding it from the late Miocene site of Sahabi to include the Early-Middle Miocene site of Jabal Zaltan. He and his team published a multi-authored special journal issue on the results of the first two years of renewed research last year.

Dr. Boaz's publications include eight books and over sixty scientific papers. He is currently completing a book on the anatomy, development, and evolutionary medicine of the human male reproductive system to be published by Oxford University Press.