Undergraduate Catalog

Evolutionary Studies Program: Faculty

Alice Andrews, MA, Developmental Psychology, Columbia University

Research interests: Literary Darwinism, evolutionary feminism, mental fitness indicators, neuroethology, brain laterality, endocrinology, epigenetics, human mating, social neuroscience, evolutionary psychiatry. Editor of Entelechy: Mind & Culture.

Alexander Bartholomew, PhD, Geology, University of Cincinnati

Research interests: Focus on reconstructing paleoecological associations in the Devonian of Eastern North America and interpretation of sea level fluctuations and paleobiogeographic trends through the Devonian of the world.

Facilities: Stratigraphy-Paleontology Laboratory (with equipment used in preparation/curration of paleontologic specimens)

Lynne Crockett, PhD, English, New York University

Research interests: Victorian literature; Charles Darwin; and Octavia E. Butler, a twentieth-century, science-fiction author. The focus is a New Historicist, Darwinian reading of texts through an examination of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific and social controversies.

Glenn Geher, PhD, Director, Social Psychology, University of New Hampshire

Research interests: The nature of human mating intelligence; biases in the perception of intimates; parental investment and mating strategies; evolutionary accounts of human behavior.

Facilities: Social-perception laboratory with computers and equipment designed to measure autonomic nervous system responses.

Aaron Haselton, PhD, Entomology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Research interests: Relationships between nutrition and neuroendocrine function and their ensuing effects on feeding behavior, reproduction, and aging in insects.

Facilities: Physiological/histological laboratory including microplate reader, incubator, activity monitors, and fluorescence immunohistochemistry facilities.

Paul Kassel, MFA, Theatre, Florida State University

Research Interests: Scholarly approaches to understanding the nature of acting, including evolutionary, psychological, and physiological factors.

Yaser Khalifa, PhD, Electronics Engineering, Cardiff University, Great Britain

Research Interests: Simulating evolutionary computational optimization algorithms to solve a number of engineering and cognitive-science-design problems.

Facilities: Intelligent Systems Laboratory: The laboratory is equipped with three Sun Workstations, five PC's, and a DELL Poweredge server.

Alison Nash, PhD, Comparative and Developmental Psychology, SUNY Stonybrook

Research interests: The evolution of infant attachments, infant peer relationships, parent social networks, and gender socialization.

Facilities: Laboratory playroom equipped with two-way mirror and video equipment for observing and videotaping the social interactions of infants and toddlers.

Tom Nolen, PhD, Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University

Research interests: Combining behavioral, anatomical, and physiological approaches to discover neural mechanisms underlying adaptive behavior. Include synaptic mechanisms of sound analysis in insects, chemical defenses in gastropod mollusks and the effect of natural defenses on potential predators, and the development of behavior and learning in the marine snail Aplysia.

Facilities: Insect laboratories that allow for study of acoustical signals emitted by insects during courtship; electrophysiological equipment to measure neural activity.

Kenneth Nystrom, PhD, Biological Anthropology, University of New Mexico

Research interests: Studying modern human diversity and the evolutionary relationship among our earliest ancestors.

Facilities: Osteology and human paleontology laboratory with skeletal and fossil cast

Jennifer Waldo, PhD, Molecular Biology, Cornell University Medical College

Research interests: Using evolution to pinpoint conserved, and therefore important, strumaterial.

ctural elements in proteins, and using cell biology to test these predictions.

Facilities: Well-equipped molecular biology lab including all necessary equipment for purification and crystallography of proteins involved in cell division.