Helen Frances James (born 22 May 1956) is an American paleontologist and paleornithologist who has published extensively on the fossil avifauna of the Hawaiian Islands. She is Curator of Birds, in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology, at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Both James’ parents were ecologists. She was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas and brought up in the Arkansas Ozarks at Kessler Mountain near Fayetteville, where she developed an interest in natural history and archaeology. As a teenager she spent two years in Ghana with her family. On returning, at the age of 16, she attended the University of Arkansas, graduating in 1977 after studying archaeology and biological anthropology.[1]
Following graduation, James worked at the National Museum of Natural History, first as an assistant to Richard Zusi researching the anatomy and systematics of hummingbirds, then with Storrs Olson on fossil birds from Hawaii. The study of Hawaii’s fossil birds became a long-term collaborative research program for James and Olson, who were married in 1981.[1]
In 2000, James earned a PhD in zoology from the University of Oxford, with a dissertation on the comparative osteology and phylogeny of the Hawaiian finches. She has also conducted research on the fossil vertebrates and paleoecology of Madagascar, the comparative osteology and phylogenetics of perching birds, and the evolution of island waterfowl.[1]