Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Lecturer in Quantitative Anthropology
- Dept of Anthropology
- Faculty of S&HS
I took a conventional route to becoming a biological anthropologist, with a three-field undergraduate degree in Archaeology & Anthropology (Cambridge), an MSc in Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (Oxford), and a PhD in Anthropology (here at UCL). After this, I spent some time working in or with other fields, first at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (part of the Toulouse School of Economics) and then in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, while a Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College. I now do research and teach in the Department of Anthropology at UCL where I am a Lecturer in Quantitative Anthropology.
My research is principally concerned with understanding the evolution of human social organisation and social behaviour. Recent and ongoing projects include ethnographic fieldwork with Agta hunter-gatherers in the Philippines, comparative work exploring the evolution of mammal sociality and theoretical work exploring the evolution of human kinship. I am currently involved with a British Academy funded quantitative ethnographic study of a fishing community in the Brazilian Pantanal, with Dr Rafael Chiaravalloti. I have worked on a wide range of questions including: (1) What factors determine the kinship structure of animal groups? (2) Why do humans recognise and invest in in-laws? (3) What happens when non-human animals go to ‘war’? and (4) Do hunter-gatherers work harder when they adopt agriculture?
I currently teach on the following courses: