Nathan Wolfe
UCLA Medical School, Dept. of Epidemiology email

Evolution, Hunters, and the Emergence of Viruses into Human Populations
Abstract: To be posted. Nathan Wolfe is moving to UCLA this fall. He is establishing the first global network to monitor the transmission of viruses including Ebola, SARS, AIDS, Nipah, and monkeypox from animals into human populations. By creating surveillance systems among people who are highly exposed to wildlife, such as subsistence hunters in Africa and wet market workers in Asia, Wolfe and his colleagues are discovering previously unknown viral threats to humanity and identifying the factors that influence how new viruses emerge. Through this research, the group works to identify ways to control potentially catastrophic pathogens before they develop into pandemics.

Lawrence Sugiyama Dept. of Anthropology, University of Oregon (affiliate, UCSB Center for Evolutionary Psychology) email

In Sickness and in Health: Health risk, health care, health outcomes and the evolution of human life history
Abstract: Delayed maturity and long lifespan, thought to have co-evolved with human entry into the “cognitive niche,” all else equal should increase human mortality risk, yet humans have lower extrinsic mortality than closely related species. Understanding why humans experience low mortality could therefore hold the key for understanding a variety of evolved human features and … the evolutionary history of our species (Hill and Kaplan, [1999], p. 413). Indeed, health risk, care, and health-related outcomes are intricately related to almost every aspect of human life history, affecting not only mortality risk, but growth, cognitive development, mate value, fertility, parental investment, coalitional value, offspring value and so on, such that human life history cannot be understood apart from the causes and consequences of differential health (and phenotypic quality more generally; e.g., Sugiyama 2005). The Shuar Life History Project: Causes and consequences of variation in health and health related outcomes, co-organized with the Hospital Sucua and the Federacíon Shuar,was organized to understand variance in Shuar health via examination of life history tradeoffs that affect it. This is important for humanitarian as well as scientific reasons. In the context of rapid change, Shuar in different areas are experiencing different environmental, social, and economic circumstances. There is significant variance in Shuar health, and understanding the causes of this variance allows us not only to test hypotheses related to the evolution of human life history, but also to identify the key factors associated with poor health and health related outcomes, issues of key concern for health education and development among the Shuar. In this talk I trace the development of this project as it arose from work on patterns of illness, injury, and disability, the evolution of health care provisioning and its effects on mortality reduction, and the development of foraging, economic and social skills. I will then present some of our preliminary data on Shuar children’s growth, health, and health-related measures in the context of larger project questions and goals.

Sponsors: The UCSB Center for Evolutionary Psychology and the UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture. This event is organized as a working seminar for faculty and graduate students. For their generous support of this conference, we thank the UCSB Division of Math, Life, and Physical Sciences, the Division of Social Sciences, and the College of Letters and Sciences. For more information, please contact CEP Lab Manager June Betancourt or call 805-893-8720.

UCLA and UCSB will hold two conferences per year, alternating between the two campuses.