About me

I am a behavioral and infectious disease ecologist and biological anthropologist. I am broadly interested in how primates and other group-living animals respond and adapt to changing environments. My research aims to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that influence animal social structure, human-animal interactions, and their impact on health outcomes. To this end, I investigate the relative effects of both inherent characteristics (genotypic variation, life-history, phylogenetic history), and extrinsic socioecological factors (resource distribution, disease risk, human impact on the environment), on the evolution of animal social structure and infectious disease transmission. To address these goals, my work integrates theoretical knowledge in behavioral ecology, evolutionary anthropology, and epidemiology, with laboratory, field, and statistical/network-based analytical approaches pertaining to these areas.The significance of my research is two-fold: gaining insights into the evolution of human sociality and group-living, and understanding the hidden and subtle behavioral and zoonotic disease-related aspects of human-wildlife interactions.

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Hear more about my research through this podcast!