Other Projects

We are involved in a number of other collaborative projects in human evolutionary biology and health.

If you are interested in a potential collaboration, please contact us!

The Hidden Costs of COVID-19 on Child Development and Health (H3CDH)

This project is being performed in collaboration with the Changing Brain Lab at Penn (Dr. Allyson Mackey) and the Laboratory for Human Biology Research at Northwestern (Dr. Thom McDade), with funding from CIFAR. By combining interview data from Philadelphia children with DLW energetic measures, hormone data, and brain imaging, we are testing the links between the COVID-19 pandemic, children’s inactivity/energy expenditure, adrenarche, and brain development.

Child Development and Health with the Transition from Informal Settlements to Subsidized Housing

This project (starting Fall 2021) is being performed in collaboration with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Dr. Eduardo Undurraga) and the Settings for Early Education and Development Lab at Harvard (Dr. Dana McCoy), with funding from CIFAR and The Jacobs Foundation. The longitudinal project uses an integrative approach (spanning the biological, social, political, and economic sciences) to investigate the impacts of transitioning from slums to subsidized housing on children’s development/health in Santiago, Chile. Our lab is involved in the design of the project and will direct the collection and analysis of biological data (including energy expenditure, growth, stress, and gut function measures).

Rural Embodiment and Community Health (REACH) Study

This project is being performed in collaboration with The Gildner Lab at Washington University in St. Louis (Dr. Theresa Gildner) and the Cepon-Robins Lab at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs (Dr. Tara Cepon-Robins). The project documents associations between lifestyle variation, ecological factors, and community health in low-socioeconomic status (SES) regions of the United States.

Bioenergetics of the Childhood Brain in Learning and Development

This project is being performed in collaboration with The Developmental Neuroimaging Lab at the University of Calgary (Dr. Catherine  Lebel) and the noiseLab at the University of Montreal (Dr. Becket Ebitz). The project provides novel data on within-individual (i.e., learning-related) and between- individual variation in childhood brain and whole-body energetics using state-of-the-art methods.

Mitochondrial Energetics in Children

This project is being performed in collaboration with The Mitochondrial Psychobiology Lab at Columbia University (Drs. Martin Picard and Caroline Trumpff). The project integrate mitochondrial energetics analyses into ongoing research in the HEBHL.

A Biocultural Approach to Routinized Social Practices in Refugee Temporary Settlements

This project is being performed in collaboration with the Hormones, Health, and Human Behavior Lab at Notre Dame (Drs. Jelena Jankovic-Rankovic and Lee Gettler). The project combines ethnographic analysis with physiological biomarkers to examine the impact of everyday lived experiences on social systems, values, identities, and health among Serbian refugees. Our lab is specifically involved in the analysis of inflammation and stress biomarkers.

Daasanach Health and Life History Project 

This project is being performed in collaboration with the Evolutionary Energetics and Ecology Lab at Duke (Drs. Zane Swanson and Herman Pontzer) and Dr. Asher Rosinger (Penn State). The project applies a broad approach to test whether changes in lifestyle (e.g., market integration and sedentarization) affect health and patterns of early childhood growth through the framework of life history theory. Our lab is specifically involved in the analysis of inflammation and immunoglobulin biomarkers.