Fishermen returning with their catch during high tide
Can evolutionary social science help solve global collective action problems?
I am an evolutionary social scientist studying how evolution and culture shape our cooperative relationships. I work to apply this knowledge toward solving collective action problems such as natural resource management.
About Me
I am a postdoc in the Human Sociality Lab, led by Anne Pisor, in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University. With co-directors Anne and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, I direct the Tanga Sociality and Fisheries Project, a long-term project based in the Tanga region of Tanzania aimed at understanding how social relationships and marine resource usage affect each other, and how these interactions can be leveraged to support the communities. This project applies diverse disciplines such as evolutionary anthropology, social psychology, and development economics to better understand how communities can work together to manage shared, open-access fisheries.
I previously worked as a research associate for the Geography of Philosophy Project, led by Edouard Machery, Clark Barrett, and Stephen Stich, examining cultural variation in folk concepts of knowledge, wisdom, and reasoning.
I received my PhD in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019, where I also completed a two-year postdoc in the Social Behavioral Science Initiative. I worked with Coren Apicella, studying how the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania maintain group cooperation and what traits they prefer in potential social partners.
