In brief: searching for connections between past and present, human and nonhuman, and theory and practice. I like to think, write, and speak about what and why humans are the way they are today.

I am an evolutionary biologist interested in the macroevolution and evolutionary ecology of our own lineage, hominins. The evolution of the traits that set humans apart from other animals, such as cumulative culture and complex technology, have long been the focus of research, but how the timing and drivers of our evolution compare to those of other animals has received far less attention. How “unique” were the processes that produced humans, and what determined the timing, pacing, and effect of these processes?

I received my First Class BA in Human, Social, and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge (2016) and my PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology, also from Cambridge, in 2021. I am currently Assistant Professor at Emory and co-PI of the Nimba Chimpanzee Project.