Obituaries Alice Mossie Brues. (Courtesy of Dr. Lynn Kilgore) Alice Mossie Brues (1913–2007) MARY K. SANDFORD University of North Carolina, Greensboro LYNN KILGORE University of Colorado, Boulder DARNA L. DUFOUR University of Colorado, Boulder JUDITH G. REGENSTEINER University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Alice Mossie Brues, professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and one of the pio- neers of physical anthropology, died on January 14, 2007, in Boulder. In a career that spanned almost seven decades, she became best known for her innovative research involv- ing the genetics of modern human variation and her use of computers to simulate natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow. A consummate anatomist and os- teologist, she ranks among the founders of applied physical AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 110, Issue 1, pp. 157–168, ISSN 0002-7294 online ISSN 1548-1433. C  2008 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2008.00016.x anthropology, forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and paleopathology. In recognition of her seminal achievements, the Ameri- can Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) named Brues one of three inaugural recipients of the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992. She had been similarly honored by the Physical Anthropology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (1986), while the Human Biology Association bestowed on her its Franz Boas Distinguished Achievement Award (1998). Alice was born on October 9, 1913, in Boston, Mas- sachusetts. Her family kindled her passion for nature and, indeed, for all things biological. Her father, Harvard pro- fessor Charles Thomas Brues, was an eminent entomologist who hailed from West Virginia. His prolific publications— almost 300 in number—included several classic field guides to insects in North America. Her mother, Beirne Barrett Brues, studied biology at the University of Texas and was a naturalist in her own right, with special expertise in botany. The family traveled extensively, and Alice and her older brother, Austin, regularly accompanied their parents on ex- peditions. Alice was often assigned the task of collecting in- sects from plants (Dufour 1989) while her mother recorded the family’s adventures, as in A Diary of a Trip to Southern- most Florida: A Faithful Account of the Wanderings of a Nature Loving Family (B. B. Brues 1924), and recounted their obser- vations, like the hiding places of tree frogs, in letters to the journal Science (B. B. Brues 1928). Given such experiences, it is not surprising that both Austin and Alice elected sci- entific careers; Austin became an internationally acclaimed radiation biologist. Many years later, Alice would dedicate her textbook People and Races (1977) to her father, crediting him with teaching her to “think biologically” at a very early age. Alice’s father also undoubtedly influenced her decision to pursue an academic life. Apparently, she felt about as comfortable in the groves of academe as she did exploring venues of the natural world. Looking back, she often won- dered whether, as a child, she had even realized that there were other kinds of work than university teaching. In many ways, Alice’s formal education resembled that of a Renaissance woman in-training. She attended the Girls’