PUSH@IT

Hello! I’m a Canadian PhD student living in Germany who’s interested in non-invasive approaches to biological anthropology, human osteology, and paleo-obstetrics. Put simply, I want to knowー why is childbirth still so hard? I’m interested in exploring the obstetrical dilemma from a computational perspective by elucidating why humans have evolved into our current forms and how it relates to bipedal locomotion, and its subsequent impact on labor and delivery.

I am joining the PUSH@IT project from Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen where I am currently enrolled as a student in the masters program in archaeological sciences and human evolution. My research is part of an institutional collaboration between Tuebingen and Dr. Webb’s project at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum. My interests in the evolution of childbirth stems from both my background in biological anthropology and personal interests cultivated by my previous experiences working with children and new mothers. My thesis involves applying 3D geometric morphometrics to investigate how childbirth has changed throughout the archaeological record to hopefully elucidate the influence of certain secular trends on birth difficulty. Specifically, I will be examining obstetrically relevant regions of the bony pelvis and compiling stature estimates to collectively test the idea that birth complications in past populations are the consequence of certain ecological conditions rather than the evolutionary trade-off proposed under the “obstetrical dilemma” hypothesis.