Welcome to my personal website
I am an anthropologist who is interested in how inherited stuff, whether genes or culture, gets passed among organisms through their networks and lineages. Most of my work has centered on the evolution of social learning and the dynamics of the cultural traditions.
I am officially a biological anthropologist because my work is grounded in evolutionary theory, although much of my work involves cultural inheritance systems as well as genetic ones. For my dissertation work, I studied foraging traditions (simple forms of culture) of white-fronted capuchin monkeys and social learning in tufted capuchins. I then spent 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow working on genetic and cultural inheritance models before taking my current job as Director of Analytics at Activate Networks. I work now in an applied research setting with very similar theory and methods as I pursued academically, which is hugely gratifying. I think that at the end of the day, science has a privileged role in our society because planes fly and antibiotics work - these are more compelling than abstract epistemologies. So, if social science is going to have the same privileged status as the 'natural' sciences, then we need to do the human equivalent of making planes fly.
The publications portion of this site has citations and more about my research. While you are visiting you may want to check out my blog, which includes my unsolicited commentaries on my primary academic and personal interests (evolution, inheritance, religion).
I am officially a biological anthropologist because my work is grounded in evolutionary theory, although much of my work involves cultural inheritance systems as well as genetic ones. For my dissertation work, I studied foraging traditions (simple forms of culture) of white-fronted capuchin monkeys and social learning in tufted capuchins. I then spent 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow working on genetic and cultural inheritance models before taking my current job as Director of Analytics at Activate Networks. I work now in an applied research setting with very similar theory and methods as I pursued academically, which is hugely gratifying. I think that at the end of the day, science has a privileged role in our society because planes fly and antibiotics work - these are more compelling than abstract epistemologies. So, if social science is going to have the same privileged status as the 'natural' sciences, then we need to do the human equivalent of making planes fly.
The publications portion of this site has citations and more about my research. While you are visiting you may want to check out my blog, which includes my unsolicited commentaries on my primary academic and personal interests (evolution, inheritance, religion).
