Department of Anthropology

I received a B.A. with highest distinction in anthropology and psychology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2012 and completed my Ph.D. in evolutionary anthropology at WSU in 2019. After graduating from WSU I was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse.

Currently, I am an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in the Africa Institute for Research in Economics and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Governance, Economics and Social Sciences. I also co-direct The Omo Valley Research Project.

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My research program focuses on uncovering interactions between individual behavioral strategies and group dynamics in the context of cultural transitions. In particular, I investigate how behaviors such as leadership and followership, decision-making, and economic strategies are related to group-level pressures such as network dynamics and alliance patterns, sociopolitical structures, group context, and cultural norms. I am especially interested in how relationships between these individual-level and group-level forces vary across populations and over time. I draw on adaptationist, behavioral-ecological, and cultural-evolutionary theoretical frameworks.

A broader focus my research program includes understanding how remote, minority ethnic populations with limited market integration navigate increasing pressures from state-level influences and maintain or adapt long-standing and more traditional components of their social, cultural, and economic livelihoods. The ultimate goal of my research program is to develop more robust, generalizable theories of human behavior, social organization, and cultural change which are supported and tested through solid empirical foundations.

I conduct fieldwork in Southwest Ethiopia. I have worked with the Chabu forager-horticulturalists in the Sheka forests investigating traditional and contemporary systems of leadership among women and men in this relatively egalitarian society.

Currently, my field research is focused on developing the Omo Valley Research Project (OVRP), which I co-direct with colleague Luke Glowacki. The OVRP is a new research enterprise aimed at building a large-scale, longitudinal data set from multiple distinct ethnolinguistic groups in Southwest Ethiopia. The OVRP focuses on cultural and ecological variation in mechanisms of cultural change and aims to better understand diversity in social organization and behavior.

Video and photography from the field:

The Chabu forager-horticulturalists video playlist

Original photography: The Chabu of Southwest Ethiopia