The research interests of current and recently graduated students are listed below. If you are interested in graduate work here, please feel free to contact me. Check out Biological Anthropology@UCLA for information on our graduate program in biological anthropology. For information about applications see the Anthropology Department web page. Also check out the Behavior, Evolution, and Culture and Animal Behavior pages for a picture of the intellectual community you would join at UCLA.
Current Students
| Karthik Panchanathan | Indirect reciprocity. Does selection favor doing good to those who do good. How is this affected by group size and information quality? |
| Stephen Le | Friendship, cooperation, prisoner's dilemma, evolutionary game theory. Fieldwork in New Britain, PNG |
| Cristina Moya | Social group categorization. Coalitional and ethnic psychology |
| Evolution of cooperation; intergroup aggression and warfare in the context of cooperation in large groups; cultural evolution |
Recent Ph.D's
| Aimee Plourde | Evolution of prestige economies. Why do people invest more resources in showy displays of wealth as political systems become more complex? Archaeological field work in Lake Titicaca region of Peru. Currently: Post doctoral fellow, Center for Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behavior, University College, London. |
| Francisco Gil-White | The evolutionary psychology of ethnic sentiments. How do cognitive and affective mechanisms give rise to ethnicity, and why did these mechanisms evolve? Field work among nomadic pastoralists in western Mongolia. The evolutionary psychology of prestige. PhD 2001.Currently: Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvannia. |
| Joe Henrich | The evolution of group differences, and the evolutionary psychology of prestige. Subsistence ecology. How do people learn to cope with their environments? Field work in Fiji. PhD 2000. Currently: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Emory University |
| Richard McElreath | The maintenance of cultural variation. Why do groups differ culturally? How much variation is due to differences in ecology and how much due to cultural inertia. Field work with several groups in south western Tanzania PhD Summer 2001. Postdoctoral fellow: MPI on Human Development, Berlin, and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis. |
| Jocelyn Peccei | The evolution of menopause. Is menopause and adaptation, and if so why? Has estimated the heritability of age of menopause and the genetic covariation of ages of menopause and menarche. PhD 1999. |
| Natalie Smith | The evolutionary psychology of group cooperation.. Do people solve commons problems, and if so how? Field work among Hmong and Chaldean communities in Detroit. PhD 2001. Attending Havard School of Public Health. |
| Adam Wetsman | The evolutionary psychology of mate choice. Do men modulate their preferences according to their own mate value, and why do men care so much about physical attractiveness? Has done extensive survey work with UCLA undergraduates. PhD 1999: Assistant Professor Rio Hondo College |