My research has focused primarily on the human foot: its evolution, function and disorders.   Over the past 15 years, together with my primary collaborators, Jeremy De Silva (Dartmouth College), Robert Kidd (University of Western Sydney) and Lee R. Berger (Wits University) with approximately 26 research scientists and post-graduate students on a number of relatively small but important projects in an attempt to answer key questions regarding the human foot and associated structures. We have focused on gaining a better understanding of the function (and dysfunction) of the human foot and associated structures. This required gaining a balance between what is understood from the clinical and experimental research focused on in extant species, the sub-fossil evidence of extinct anatomically modern humans and the early hominin fossil record. Ultimately, by gaining greater insight into the evolution of the foot and hominoid locomotor strategies, a contribution to the understanding of the evolution of habitual bipedalism is gained. As pedal elements in the hominin fossil record are extremely rare, every element needs to be meticulously studied in detail in order to gain the maximum amount of information. I have been in an exceptionally good position to do this, as I have both a clinical background in the understanding of foot function and dysfunction, as well as my more recent work in physical anthropology and palaeoanthropology. Two particularly notable projects were the descriptions of the foot and ankle of the new hominin species Australopithecus sediba (Zipfel et al., 2011; DeSilva et al., 2013) and Homo naledi (Harcourt-Smith et al., 2015). In 2016, together with Jeremy DeSilva and Elli McNutt, we embarked on a major review of the evolution of the human foot (McNutt et al., 2018; DeSilva et al., 2019). A third in this series of papers will address the podiatric implications of the evolution of the foot (Zipfel, McNutt, De Silva – in preparation). Together with Kristian Carlson (University of Southern California) and others, we are investigating the cross sectional properties of human metatarsals of people who lived different lifestyles to see what effect these varying lifestyles have on forefoot morphology. 

The Kromdraai archaeological site is located in a fossiliferous paleokarst situated in the UNESCO World Heritage Site referred to as the ‘‘Cradle of Humankind’’ in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. Kromdraai is noteworthy as it features among the three southern African early hominin-bearing sites considered to represent distinct temporal periods within the same stratigraphic succession (Kromdraai, Swartkrans and Sterkfontein) . Kromdraai also yielded a partial hominin skull and dentition (TM 1517) in 1938, the holotype of  Paranthropus robustus. Since 2014, the previously unknown, albeit densely fossiliferous Unit P produced 51 individually catalogued hominin fossils (36 craniodental and 15 postcranial) that currently represent 13% of the faunal assemblage from this unit with a minimum number of 10 juvenile and 9 adult individuals (Braga, Thackeray & Zipfel, 2022). Together with Prof José Braga (University of Toulouse), Prof Francis Thackeray (Wits), I am a co- excavation permit holder for the site. We carry out two excavation field seasons per year.

As curator of collections, I take an interest in collecting evidence based data on natural history collections and have recently embarked on a number of small projects to document collections at Wits University, and collections at other institutions. These include: