Dr. Assal Habibi, Assoc. Professor of Psychology, University of Southern California This speaker will be presenting in person. The Brain’s Crescendo; How Music Training Impacts Child Development  Abstract: In an ongoing multi-year longitudinal study, we have been investigating the effects of a group-based music training program on development of children, beginning at age 6, using […]

Dr. Amy Lu, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Stony Brook University This talk will be presented via Zoom. Female counterstrategies to infanticide in lactating gelada females: adaptive, but not cost-free Abstract: Adverse socioecological conditions can have pervasive effects on health and fitness. For mothers, adverse conditions can trigger cost-cutting strategies that limit investment in reproduction. […]

Dr. Kim Hill, Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University This talk will be presented via Zoom. Human Uniqueness and the study of interdependence in Samal “sea nomads” of the Philippines.  Abstract:  Humans are an extreme outlier species by many objective measures. How did we get to be so different from […]

Dr. Laurel Fogarty, Senior Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology This talk will be presented via Zoom. Cultural rescue: avoiding extinction with gene-culture coevolution.  Abstract: It is often suggested that the adaptability and success of human populations is a direct result of our sophisticated cultural abilities. Previously, we have suggested that in cases where […]

Dr. Caroline Schuppli, Max Planck Research Group leader, MPI for Animal Behavior This talk will be presented via Zoom.  Skill acquisition and life history: towards a better understanding of cognitive evolution Abstract: Cognitive capacity gets selected for via skills and abilities which provide individuals with fitness benefits. However, strikingly, the larger brained a species is, the more incompetent its infants are […]