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I and my students and collaborators use principles from anthropology and evolutionary biology to gain insights into the biological and health impacts of human developmental plasticity. In particular, we focus on the long-term effects of intrauterine and early postnatal environments on human development, adult health, reproduction and life history. Other projects focus on the psychobiology of social relationships, genetics and molecular biology, the evolution of the human brain and evolutionary medicine. See Projects and Publications pages for more. Recent research highlights (pubs page has full list of pdfs): Kuzawa CW, Bragg JM (in press), "Plasticity in human life history strategy: Implications for contemporary human variation and the evolution of genus Homo" Current Anthropology Miller DJ, Duka T, Stimpson CD, Schapiro SJ, Baze WB, McArthur MJ, Fobbs AJ, Wildman ED, Lipovich L, Kuzawa CW, Hof PR, Sherwood CC (2012), "Evolution of prolonged myelin growth in the cerebral cortex of humans compared to chimpanzees" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(41):10251-6 Alcock J, Franklin ML, Kuzawa CW (2012), "Nutrient signaling: the evolutionary origins of the immune modulating effects of dietary fat" Quarterly Review Biology, 87(3):187-223 Eisenberg DTAE, Hayes, MG, Kuzawa CW (2012), "Evidence that delaying paternal age of reproduction in humans lengthens telomeres across two generations of descendants" Proc Nat Academy of Sciences, 109(26): 10251-6. **Listen to s a radio piece on BBC The World. Kuzawa CW (2012), Why
evolution needs development, and medicine needs evolution. Int'l
J Epidemiology. 41:223-229. Gettler, LT, McDade TW, Feranil AB, Kuzawa CW (2011), Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males. Proc Nat Acad of Sci. Supporting information. **see coverage of our fatherhood testosterone story in the New York Times and hear an interview on the BBC World Service. Here is a nicely done television report from Channel 4 (UK). We also discuss the study's findings and implications in more detail on a Guest Blog on the Scientific American blog network. Kuzawa CW, Thayer Z (2011), The timescales of human adaptation: The role of epigenetic processes Epigenomics. 3(2)221-234. Dr. Kuzawa is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research and a founding member of Cells 2 Society, Northwestern’s interdisciplinary center for the study of health disparities. |
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Department of Anthropology phone: 847-467-4302 |
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Laboratory
for Human Biology Research • Department
of Anthropology • Northwestern
University |