In fact, Lovejoy says, he is called in quite often to analyze skeletons.

"If it's more than three weeks old, I get it," he says. "It's what I do--I get the maggots."

It may sound like grisly work, but because of his knowledge of biology and forensics, Lovejoy calls it his civic duty. He does the work free of charge and is still able to joke about a time that a maggot jumped out of his pocket as he was driving home from a morgue.

"Maggots," he laughs and says, "they can jump a foot and a half."

Outside of his professional ventures, Lovejoy has a fairly normal home life with his wife, Melanie McCollum, 38, an assistant professor of anatomy at Case Western Reserve University medical and dental schools. McCollum was born in Liberal, Kans., but spent most of her life in Denver and graduated from the University of Texas.

The pair met in 1989 at the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, Calif. McCollum was there shopping around for a doctorate program in biological anthropology, and Lovejoy was giving a lecture at the institute at the same time. McCollum arrived in Kent the next semester and began working on hominid craniofacial evolution.

McCollum says she was first struck by Lovejoy's sense of humor.

"He's a real goofball," she says.

The pair was married in 1995 after they had grown closer the previous year when both McCollum's father and Lovejoy's wife were diagnosed with cancer at the same time.

"After a year of taking care of one another, we realized we were more than just friends," McCollum says.

Now the two share projects like remodeling their Twin Lakes home. They have doubled the size of the house during the years they've lived there, says Lovejoy.

"I use it as a form of exercise," he says. "I keep all the power tools in the basement and work on the second floor. Then I have to run up and down the stairs."

But Lovejoy says it's time to move from one home project to a new one. The couple is planning to build a new home and it designing its interior and exterior on their own.

"We are chronic DIY-ers," says McCollum.

"Lovejoy has one more passion--his read, 1991 Ferrari 348, which he calls a great way to save money.

"I can't really afford to drive it, but I can look at it," he jokes.

And for everyday pleasures, Lovejoy says he is "addicted" to Formula 1 racing, loves to travel and plays some guitar, which McCollum says is one of Lovejoy's secrets.

In the mid-60s, Lovejoy played stand-up bass for a local folk group, "The Purple Mountain Majesty Boys."

"The word on the street is that they were pretty good," says McCollum.

The band broke up during the Vietnam War, and now Lovejoy saves all of his playing for inside the house.

"These days Owen is restricted to playing guitar to an audience of housecats," McCollum jokes. "It's standing room only."

And according to McCollum, it's Lovejoy's personality that anyone who knows him will remember.

"Have I mentioned he's a goofball?"

For now, the Matthew Ferrini Institute is Lovejoy's main focus. He spent last semester working with five students on their dissertations, including Serrat, who says she had heard of Lovejoy long before she attended Kent State.

"I never thought that I would have the opportunity to work with Owen," she says, "and I realize how fortunate I am that he is willing to take me on as a student. He is incredibly knowledgeable and is always willing to work with students. He is unlike any professor that I know."

Lovejoy says he likes the idea of working closely with students on their dissertations because he knows that those studies will be the start of their careers. He becomes serious as he stresses the importance of preparing students for the future of science.

"Understanding of the world is exploding--so much so that the world doesn't understand it," he says. "Anyone who can still say that evolution is a theory simply does not understand the way the world is."

He begins to formulate examples of what the world can expect--that the process of aging will be under full control within 50 to 100 years, that all degenerative diseases will be curable by gene therapy.

"What happens when someone is alive for 200 or 300 years and is still learning?" he asks. "Does their brain fill up? It's a logarithmic leap. It's going to happen, and will happen. Cloning is nothing compared to what's possible in 10 years."

He relaxes and leans back in his chair.

The Matthew Ferrini Institute for Human Evolutionary Research opened earlier this year, and Lovejoy has been busy running it.

"I want the Institute to establish once and for all that we're not upright to look over tall grass!" he says.

And when he's done that, what else is left?

"Actually, all the things I'd really like to do, I've already done," he says as a grin stretches across his face.