Dr. Kirk teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in physical anthropology, is a member of the American Association of Physical Anthropology and Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, and is the author of numerous professional publications, including papers published in the Journal of Human Evolution, the American Journal of Primatology, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Kirk has a broad array of research interests in physical anthropology, including sensory ecology, functional morphology, and paleontology. His primary research interest is the evolution of primate sensory systems, important to physical anthropology because many of the major adaptive shifts that occurred during the course of primate evolution involved key changes in sensory anatomy and ecology.