Elizabeth Harmon

Elizabeth Hunt Harmon
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. - Elizabeth Hunt Harmon, beloved daughter of Frank and Judy Harmon of Pocatello, passed away on Monday, March 23, 2009, at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, New York, after a sudden illness.
Born in Laramie, Wyoming, she moved with her family to Pocatello in 1969, where she spent the remainder of her childhood. She attended Washington Elementary School, Franklin Junior High School and graduated from Pocatello High School in 1982. In the early the fall after high school graduation and on the evening before the family's scheduled trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Elizabeth was accepted and enrolled in University of Utah, Elizabeth informed her parents she had changed her mind about going to school there.
Instead, she had decided she wanted to explore more of the wider world before settling down to university studies. This set the tone for her adult life and was consistent with her personality - independent, strong-minded, adventuresome, capable, creative, smart as a whip, and energetic.
Upon deciding to go to college, she enrolled in Portland State University (PSU) in Portland, Ore., where her parents had grown up and attended college. At PSU she completed her undergraduate degree in physical anthropology, then spent several years as a field archeologist in the Mariana Islands, in the Hawaiian Islands, and in several other states, including Arizona.
Having determined she wanted to attend graduate school, she gained acceptance to Arizona State University, one of the best in the country for physical anthropology. She earned her Ph.D. in 2005, from Arizona State under the tutelage of the Institute of Human Origins (IHO), then directed by Dr. Donald Johanson, renown for being the co-discoverer in 1974 of "Lucy," the first fossil remains of a new species of ancient hominin given the name Australopithecus afarensis.
Her Ph.D. supervisor was Dr. William Kimbel, current IHO director. With her graduate work came opportunities for field experience and research in Africa, which she fully embraced, first as a teaching assistant at the Paleoanthropology Field School in Makapansgat, South Africa, then as research assistant and field manager for the IHO Hadar Research Project in the Hadar Valley of Ethiopia where both "Lucy" and the more-recently discovered A. afarensis fossil known as the "Dikika baby" were found.
After earning her Ph.D. and completing brief teaching stints at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Elizabeth joined the faculty in the Department of Anthropology at Hunter College - CUNY (City University of New York) in 2006. She was also a contributing faculty member in the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology graduate program. She was a gifted teacher and scholar. Her research interests continued to take her to Ethiopia every year, where she and her colleague from the University of Montreal co-directed a paleontological field project and were developing their own research site in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia.
Ever the Idahoan though, Elizabeth never failed to return home for Christmas with her family and skiing. She loved the natural world and always preferred to be in the out-of-doors pursuing the activities she learned as a girl growing up in Idaho - camping, running rivers, swimming, hiking, bicycling, and gardening. To these she added diving while living in Guam and climbing, which she took up while living in Nevada.
Elizabeth is survived by her father and mother, Frank and Judy Harmon of Pocatello; her two brothers, Matthew, of Los Angeles, Calif., and Franklin - his spouse, Loreen Bruckmann-Harmon, and their daughter, Riley - of Albany, Calif.; her uncle, Rick, and aunt, Majel Harmon of Palm Springs, Calif.; uncle, Larry Valentine of Portland, Ore.; her great-aunt, Dorothy Skelton of Anacortes, Wash.; and several cousins who reside in Oregon, Washington and Post Falls, Idaho.
In lieu of flowers or gifts, her family requests that contributions please be made in her memory to the Idaho Food Bank, P.O. Box 125, Pocatello, Idaho 83204; the Pocatello Free Clinic, 429 Washington Ave., Pocatello, Idaho, 83201; or the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Scholarship Fund, Treasurer, 9490 N. Ridgewood Road, Pocatello, Idaho 83201.
A celebration of Elizabeth's life will be held in the Teton Valley this coming summer. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at harmons@ida.net.