Jeffrey Meldrum

Don Jeffrey "Jeff" Meldrum (born May 24, 1958) is a Full Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology and a Professor of the Department of Anthropology at Idaho State University. Meldrum is also Adjunct Professor of Occupational and Physical Therapy.
Meldrum is an expert on foot morphology and locomotion in primates.

Biography

Meldrum received his B.S. in zoology specializing in vertebrate locomotion at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1982, his M.S. at BYU in 1984 and a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences, with an emphasis in biological anthropology, from Stony Brook University in 1989 (then referred to as State University of New York at Stony Brook). He held the position of postdoctoral visiting assistant professor at Duke University Medical Center from 1989 to 1991. Meldrum worked at Northwestern University's Department of Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology for a short while in 1993 before joining the faculty of Idaho State University where he currently teaches.

Meldrum has published numerous academic papers ranging from vertebrate evolutionary morphology, the emergence of bipedal locomotion in modern humans and Sasquatch (Bigfoot) and is a co-editor of a series of books on paleontology. Meldrum also coedited From Biped to Strider: The Emergence of Modern Human Walking with Charles E. Hilton. He edited the textbook From Biped to Strider (Springer, 2004)

Meldrum has attracted media attention due to his interest in Bigfoot. Skeptic Brian Dunning writes that "The work of responsible scientists like Dr. Meldrum is exactly what true skeptics should be asking the Bigfoot community for, not criticizing him for it."

Meldrum was present at a 2011 conference in Siberia to discuss the Russian wildman. He acknowledged that the results of the Russian field trip to the cave site were most likely fraudulent. He suggested that the supposed evidence found was simply an attempt by local government officials to drum up publicity.

Meldrum has also studied and commented upon issues of genetics and the Book of Mormon including his book "Who Are the Children of Lehi?" written with Trent D. Stephens.