Research Background:

I am a biological anthropologist specializing in biocultural and evolutionary approaches to human variation. My research focuses on the linkages between social and cultural processes, human biology, and health. I am particularly interested in the biological impacts of globalization, modernization, and cultural change, in human adaptability and in ecological models for hominid evolution.

Current Research:

I am currently involved in research projects in Ecuador and Siberia:

A Cross-Cultural Study of Integration to the Market and Indigenous Health in the Ecuadorian Amazon.   This project is a 3-year, NSF funded project in collaboration with Flora Lu, an anthropologist at UC Santa Cruz.  Ecuador’s Amazon houses extraordinary levels of plant and animal biodiversity, plays a key role in global climate processes and carbon cycles, and supports the physical and cultural survival of indigenous and traditional forest people.  However, because of petroleum exploitation, colonization, infrastructure development, urbanization, and land clearing for agriculture and cattle ranching, Ecuador has had the highest rate of deforestation in the entire Amazon Basin since 1990.  These processes have also led indigenous populations to become increasingly involved in the market economy, with profound economic, health, and cultural implications.  This project will determine the health consequences of increasing integration to the market (abbreviated MI) among a cross-cultural sample of five native Amazonian populations of northeastern Ecuador.  Our research aims are to: (1) investigate variation in health, and (2) examine the mechanisms through which MI influences health through reciprocity networks, mobility, diet, and access to and use of medical care.  The project integrates methodologies from ecological, cultural, and biological anthropology and includes focus groups, cultural domain analysis, dietary intake interviews, and time allocation as well as anthropometric assessment and biomarkers of current infection, anemia and vitamin A status.  This project is one of the few cross-cultural and interdisciplinary studies of indigenous economics and health.  It builds on long-term collaborative and comparative research in the region and develops a model based on linking empirical data on MI with biocultural outcomes.  Theoretically, this research furthers understanding of the connections between cultural behavior, socioeconomic context, and health, with implications for biocultural resilience, human behavioral ecology, and life history theory.  The broader impacts of this project will be seen in its relevance to promotion of indigenous well-being, direct public communication to policymakers, and promotion of education and training of Ecuadorian and US students.

Lifestyle, Stress and risk for the metabolic syndrome in Yakutia.  This is a 3-year project conducted in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Yakutia.   The project is funded by the Office of Global Health at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health.  This project will focus on the impacts of the post-socialist transition on the health and well-being of Siberian reindeer herders. I am collaborating with researchers in Russia to investigate changing household subsistence strategies among Evenki, Eveny and Sakha (Yakut) herders. In this project we are investigating the role of economic status and subsistence activities on psychosocial stress and measures of health and immune function in the circumpolar environment. The goal of the project is to understand the health consequences of rapid social and cultural changes, and to determine the mechanisms through which social and cultural processes affect health and human biology.

My other work focuses on metabolic adaptation among circumpolar populations, in collaboration with William Leonard at Northwestern University and J. Josh Snodgrass at the University of Oregon.  In this work we have found that elevated metabolic rates in Siberians are consistent with physiological adaptation to the stressors of an high latitude environment. Currently we are focused on determining relationships between metabolic variation and risk for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases including hypertension, coronary heart disease, obesity, and the insulin resistance syndrome.