Research

As a charter faculty member in the Environmental Behavioral Sciences group in the Department of Environmental Social Sciences, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, my research focuses on human ecology and adaptability broadly construed.

This includes understanding the evolutionary and ecological contexts of human livelihoods and reproductive decision-making, adaptation to the changing social and biophysical environment, and the measurement and modeling of the consequences of social and behavioral heterogeneity. A substantial share of my research portfolio has addressed the transmission and control of infectious disease, with a particular focus on the role of social and behavioral heterogeneity, as well as coupled cultural-evolutionary dynamics in shaping epidemic outcomes.

Most of my recent work has focused on theoretical and computational models of decision-making and cultural evolution. Nonetheless, I am also involved in the collection of social, behavioral, and ecological data using anthropological, mixed-method approaches. My methodological toolkit includes formal demography, transmission-dynamics models, agent-based models, cultural-evolutionary models, social network analysis, and advanced statistics.

An emergent theme in my current research is the role of uncertainty in shaping human evolution, decision-making, and cognition. Uncertainty is the commonality of my ongoing major research foci, which include:

1. Existential Threats and the Problem of Human Extinction
2. The Evolution of Narrative for Decision-Making Under Radical Uncertainty
3. Networks and Livelihood Risk-Management
4. Adaptation, Innovation, and Cultural Evolution