Michael Gurven

Michael Gurven (PhD, University of New Mexico) is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research links the evolved life history of humans with high levels of intragroup cooperation. He has conducted fieldwork for 18 years with South American indigenous populations, and has published over 140 articles that take an evolutionary perspective on behavior, health, physiology and psychology. Since 2002, Gurven has co-directed the Tsimane’ Health and Life History Project to better understand how aspects of environment and lifestyle affect health and lifespan in subsistence-level societies. His research applies an evolutionary lens to help inform our understanding of today’s complex diseases.