Lab Director
I am an ecological anthropologist whose research explores the social and environmental dynamics of farming and foraging societies, past and present. I have over 20 years of fieldwork experience in Belize, Central America (including an NSF CAREER grant). My work is guided by anthropology’s traditional focus on human cultural and biological variability, which I believe can provide important insights into pressing questions about contemporary societies and the environmental sustainability. In order to achieve this potential, I believe it is important to collaborate across disciplines and to develop and apply new methods of data collection and analysis.
The main research goal of my NSF CAREER project is to develop a novel adaptive self-organization framework for explaining the coupled human-natural dynamics of swidden agriculture. Many of the publications resulting from the HCLab contribute to this goal.
In addition, I am interested in developing a theory-driven approach to computational social science, including research applications and curriculum development.