Morphometrics, or shape analysis, contributes to many diverse research areas. The shape of an organ or organism may affect its function and can reflect developmental state, ecological adaptation, and/or evolutionary history. In this course will will examine the methdos and tools of shape analysis with an emphasis on the latest geometric methods, especially the coordinate-based methods for the analysis of anatomical landmark locations. Topics include:

• data types and acquisition
• geometric interpretation of matrix operations
• geometry of multivariate statistics
• construction of shape variables
• shape spaces
• statistical analysis of shape
• outline analysis
• advanced topics