Her work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Carnegie-Knight Task Force on Journalism, the Spanish Ministry of Science, among other funders, and has been recognized with various academic awards. Feldman serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Communication, Communication Research, and Environmental Communication, and she is an affiliate of the Rutgers Climate Institute and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Feldman earned her PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds an MA in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in English from Duke University. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at American University.   

His research has focused on developing computational methods for learning about history and natural selection from genomic data, with notable applications to humans, fruit flies, and desert tortoises. His teaching has primarily been in computational biology, but he is currently developing a course focused on the relationships between personal genetics, ancestry, and conceptions of race.

He has been awarded several humanitarian awards, including the Boy Scout Medal of Honor for saving a life and the Red Cross Certificate of Merit. He is the Honorary National President of the South African Spelaeological Association.

His efforts in conservation have been recognized by the William T. Hornaday Award and Georgia’s Youth Conservationist of the Year. His explorations into human origins on the African continent, Asia, and Micronesia for the past two and a half decades have resulted in many new discoveries, including the discovery of two new species of early human relatives – Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi.

These discoveries were recognized by the Smithsonian as among the ten most important scientific discoveries of the decade in 2020. His contributions to exploration sciences have also resulted in advances in the field of applied exploration methods and the application of technology to exploration, excavation, and discovery. Teams under his leadership have recovered more individual hominid remains in sub-equatorial Africa over the last decade than were recovered in the previous 90 years.

He is the author of more than two hundred scholarly and popular works, including more than 170 refereed publications and a number of academic and popular books on paleontology, natural history, and exploration. His work has been recognized by Web of Science as being among the top 1% of all citations. His discoveries have been featured three times on the cover of Science and have been named the top 100 science stories of the year by Time, Scientific American, and Discover Magazine on numerous occasions. He has appeared in many television documentaries on subjects related to archaeology, palaeoanthropology, and natural history. The 2015 PBS Nova National Geographic documentary "Dawn of Humanity" about Berger’s discovery of Homo naledi and the Rising Star expedition was nominated for an Emmy. Berger is an internationally recognized proponent of open-access science and open sourcing. His novel approach to inclusive science and open collaboration has given him recognition as a Pioneer in Science by the World Science Festival, and in 2016 Time recognized him as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

He is a Founding Trustee of the not-for-profit Lee R. Berger Foundation for Exploration and was a founder of the Palaeoanthropological Scientific Trust as well as a founding Trustee of the Jane Goodall Society of South Africa. He is the Director of both the Malapa site and Rising Star excavations, the latter resulting in the discovery of the largest primitive hominin assemblage in history.

Berger is an avid diver and adventurer and holds a PADI Divemaster certificate, among many other specialties. Berger was born in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, and grew up in rural Georgia. He was awarded his Eagle Scout in 1983, achieving his silver and gold palms, and has been recognized as a Distinguished Eagle Scout by the Eagle Scouts Association of America. Berger co-authored the Boy Scouts of America Exploration Merit badge launched in 2017. Berger is a Kappa Sigma Alumnus.

Berger is presently the Phillip Tobias Chair in Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and an Explorer at Large for the National Geographic Society. His collaborative team of scientists numbers over 140 individuals. He holds a Ph.D. in palaeoanthropology and a Doctor of Science in the same field.