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Overview
Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology+44 (0) 191 33 41630
Fellow of the Durham Research Methods Centre
Associate Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study
Fellow of the Institute for Medical Humanities

Biography

After completing my undergraduate (BSc, Hons) in Biology at the University of Nottingham and then a masters (MSc) in Biological Computation at the University of York, I carried out my PhD at the Sub-Dept. of Animal Behaviour (Madingley), within the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, supervised by Kevin Lala (formally Laland). This work focused on the adaptive value of social learning, including experiments studying social learning in guppy fish and mathematical modelling exploring the circumstances under which social learning can evolve. I then worked as a post-doc with Marc Feldman at Stanford University, developing mathematical models of cultural evolution in humans, in particular exploring fertility transition patterns within and across populations and a separate project modelling the evolution of costly normative practices. This was followed by a post-doc position with Kevin Lala in St. Andrews running experiments to examine social learning in stickleback fish. In 2007, I moved to Durham to take up a Research Fellowship (RCUK) in the Department of Anthropology which transitioned to a lectureship. And Durham's such a lovely place I've been here ever since!

Research Interests

I'm interested in how properties of human learning and human-environment interactions shape patterns of cultural variation. I use a wide variety of approaches from mathematical modelling and experiments, to interviews and focus group work. Most of the research involves cross-disciplinary collaboration. Here's a selection of recent or ongoing projects:

  • adaptive properties of social learning
  • coevolution of AI and human behaviour - implications for human knowledge and inequality
  • conformist biased transmission dynamics
  • cultural practices affecting disease emergence
  • cultural evolution of knots - focusing on copying errors and the topology of knot space
  • evolution of folktales and folkmusic
  • evolution of graphical representations
  • evolutionary properties of digital technologies
  • prestige effects on patterns of social transmission in hierarchical institutions
  • social influences on cooperative behaviour
  • tacit knowledge in academia
  • spatial memory
PhD Projects

PhD projects are available in the following areas:

  • The Evolution of Temporal Representations in Humans and Non-human Animals
    • co-supervised with Gema Martin-Ordas (University of Stirling) and Kristie Miller (University of Sydney)
  • The Evolution of Climbing Grade Systems
    • co-supervised with Amanda Tan (Durham University)
  • Functioning of Spatial Memory in Urban Environments
    • co-supervised with Alex Easton and Marco Bernini (Durham University)

Prospective students are also welcome to contact me with their own research project ideas.

Funding is available through the Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership NINE DTP.

Teaching

I teach undergraduate modules concerning evolutionary explanations of human behaviour, scientific methods and statistics. In 2024-25, I have a new third-year module called Evolving Knowledge Systems. This will take in a wide range of perspectives from indigenous knowledge to distributed cognition to AI algorithms.

Research interests

  • Social transmission and population dynamics

Publications

Chapter in book

Journal Article

Manual

Working Paper

Supervision students