Fellows

Adam Boyette (Evolutionary Anthropology, WSU; BA in Psychobiology, UC Santa Cruz, 2002; MA in Anthropology, WSU, 2006)
Focus: In order to succeed, both biologically through enhanced fitness and/or culturally through local concepts of acquired status, human children must go through an evolved period of intense learning. I want to understand the social-aspects of that period of learning. For example, human cultures vary in the ways in which their members cooperate with one another, the perceived fitness benefits of cooperating dependent upon both biological and cultural factors. How much of this variation is attributable to learning from our parents versus other members of our group? How does our rearing environment affect whom we target as cultural models? How does the differential attention allocated to specific models influence culture change? I want to build on current theory and methods to answer these and related questions. My hypotheses, derived from theoretical models of adaptive cultural transmission, will be tested using data I collect from Central African foragers.
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Chad Brock (Biology, WSU; BS in Biological Sciences, U of Nebraska, 2006)
Focus: The application of phylogenetic comparative methods and computer-based modeling approaches to the evolution of complex behavioral and/or cultural traits. Possible research topics: 1) The evolution and maintenance of mutualistic interactions between cleaner wrasses and their “client” fish, especially the possible role of sensory exploitation on the part of the wrasses in guiding this process. 2) The transmission of cultural traits (such as knowledge of feeding areas) in schooling fish. 3) The application and evaluation (through computer simulation) of various statistical phylogenetic approaches, especially likelihood-based methods, to study the evolution of cultural traits. 4) Application of ancestral-state reconstruction methods and ecological niche modeling to study the effect of certain factors (e.g., varying predation pressures) on the evolution of plasticity in behavioral syndromes within a given clade. 5) Using comparative phylogenetic analyses to study the impact of cultural evolution on behavioral, molecular, and/or physiological evolution in humans.
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Megan Carney (Biocultural Anthropology, UW; BS in Anthropology and Zoology, U of Michigan, 2001)
Focus: Darwinian processes in cultural and biological systems; using computational methods to integrate evolutionary ecological and cultural transmission approaches to cultural change. Possible research topics: 1) Adoption as an example of cooperation in social systems. An apparently altruistic behavior, the care of others’ offspring (henceforth referred to as “adoption” or “adoptive behavior’) has long been of interest to behavioral ecologists. Researchers currently debate the adaptiveness of adoption in modern environments. For example, some suggest that it is a non-adaptive response, resulting from proximate mechanisms eliciting interest in and care of offspring (Silk 1990). Yet, it is possible that adoption is maintained through a process resembling reciprocal altruism in some cases, and increased inclusive fitness in others. 2) Cross-species analysis of adoption and other forms of offspring care; for example, adoption has been recorded in over 270 species of social birds and mammals. 3) Using mathematical and computational models to examine if and when adoption can be sustained by mechanisms of social transmission.
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Devin Drown (Biology, WSU; BA in Biology, Grinnell College, 1996)
Focus: My research interests are in coevolutionary interactions, particularly host-parasite interactions.  I am interested in the effect of dispersal (or migration) on coevolutionary interactions.  I am also interested in how the local patterns of interaction between host and parasite (e.g. local adaptation) can scale up and lead to patterns of host specificity.  My thesis research is divided into two main areas: empirical work and theory work.  For my empirical work, I am investigating the interaction of Potamopyrgus antipodarum (New Zealand Mud Snails) and a commonly infecting trematode worm (Microphallus sp.).  I have begun by collecting molecular data to look for patterns across the interaction.  Next, I will design local adaptation experiments to test the scale of interactions.  I am using this system to explore how local patterns of adaptation may scale up from populations to species.  For my theory work, I have focused on host-parasite interactions and am interested in how this type of interaction can shape the migration rate of one player in the interaction.  I have been using a using a variety of techniques (numerical simulations, analytical solutions and QLE approximations) to understand the evolution of migration in an antagonistic interaction.
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Erik Gjesfjeld (Archaeology, UW; BA in Archaeology, U of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 2002; MA in Archaeological Theory and in Archaeological Field Techniques, U College London, 2004)
Focus: The use of Darwinian processes and the explanation of variation in biological and cultural systems. An interdisciplinary approach to understanding Darwinian processes is critical to archaeology, as the theoretical and methodological foundations for understanding cultural evolution rely on strategies developed in biology, anthropology and other disciplines. Thus, my research agenda will emphasize an interdisciplinary understanding of the positive and negative analogies between processes of cultural and biological systems. Possible research topics: 1) Using statistical phylogenetic methods to model cultural change and identify coevolutionary traits, as well as to identify the prevalence of vertical and horizontal variation in the archaeological record. 2) Study of coevolutionary dynamics in cultural evolution and in culture-environment interactions. 3) The integration of evolutionary ecology and cultural transmission; the explanatory mechanisms of an evolutionary ecology framework are necessary in order to integrate cultural transmission processes and explanations of cultural change.
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Benjamin Hanowell (Biocultural Anthropology, UW; BA in Anthropology, California State U - Sacramento, 2007)
Focus: International aid and development organizations would benefit from a clearer understanding of the social problems they purport to mitigate, such as the prevalence and increase of marked social inequality and its associated ills (i.e. starvation, disease, social unrest, violence). Identifying how culture and ecology intersect with individual motives to produce large-scale inequity has and will continue to help build this understanding. Computational agent-based modeling experiments based on inequality research and theory could help identify, quantify, and test our assumptions about how these systems emerge, evolve, and relate to similar situations in nature before risking possibly ineffectual and dangerous intervention on the ground. Simple, general models of inequality could also assist researchers in the comparative analysis of colonial and postcolonial political economics across space and time. These complex problems deserve the same scientific rigor afforded to other academic subjects.
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Meredith Schulte (Evolutionary Anthropology, WSU; BS in Anthropology and Biology, U of Southern California, 2006)
Focus: Using evolutionary modeling to understand the origins and development of culture, the phylogenetics/phylogeography of neotropical primates, health implications of human-primate interactions, and conservation issues. I am currently focusing on the effects of tourism and development on the behavior, health and evolution of capuchin monkeys, Cebus capucinus, in Central Pacific Costa Rica. I have completed pilot research on behavioral differences in capuchins living in tourist regions as part of the IPEM team project. I am in the process of doing microsatellite genetic analyses of capuchin phylogeography in Costa Rica as a part of the IPEM team project. I will be returning to UCIMED in Costa Rica during Fall 2007 to analyze fecal parasites of white-faced capuchins in the Manuel Antonio area, comparing a group living in an agricultural region with one living in a highly touristed national park. I will be beginning a second field season at this site in January 2008, continuing genetic and parasite analyses and focusing on a behavioral analysis of the sex/age class differences in ecologically based aggression.
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Megan van Wolkenten (Evolutionary Anthropology, WSU; BA in Anthropology and Psychology, College of William and Mary, 2003; MA in Psychology, Emory U, 2005)
Focus: The application of agent based modeling and game theory to understand the evolution of sexual behavior. Possible research topics: 1) The evolution of non-conceptive sexual behaviors and possible adaptive functions of such behaviors. For example, in many western societies, homosexuality is often considered maladaptive since an exclusive attraction to same-sex sex partners is likely to preclude reproduction. However, if we broaden the definition of homosexuality to include any same sex sexual interactions rather than an exclusive attraction to members of the same sex, homosexual behavior no longer precludes the possibility of reproductive sexual encounters, and may, in fact, serve an adaptive function. Consider bonobos, where female-female sexual interactions lead to an increase in social bonding between females. Stronger bonds, particularly among unrelated females, facilitate female cooperation against males, allowing females to maintain priority access to food patches. 2) Intragroup variation in mating strategies, the factors that influence these strategies, and the effect of alternative strategies on an individual’s reproductive success..
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