Dr Geoff Kushnick

I am an evolutionary anthropologist with expertise in human behavioural ecology, which in its very broadest sense is the study of human behaviour in evolutionary perspective. Although I was trained as a four-field anthropologist, my primary interests are in biological and cultural anthropology. I studied at the master's level under Beth Strasser, a primate morphologist with interests in human and primate evolution. At the doctoral level, I studied under Eric Alden Smith, one of founders of human behavioural ecology. The other two members of my doctoral committee, Donna Leonetti and Darryl Holman, also served as apt mentors, especially with regards to the demographic and statistical dimensions of my project. In 2006, I was awarded a PhD in Biocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington in Seattle. My dissertation was based on 12 months of quantitative ethnographic fieldwork on parent-offspring interactions among the Karo people of North Sumatra, Indonesia, conducted with a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation (USA).

After my PhD, I was hired as a full-time faculty member at the University of Washington. I made a lasting impact on students there, having had 2500 enrolled in my classes over 7 years, while working hard to keep an active research program. My career turned a corner when I was invited to join the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's "Culture and the Mind" Project (which stemmed from my collaborations with Dan Fessler from UCLA), and then I was awarded a Fulbright Scholars Grant. In July, 2014, I started my current job as a Lecturer in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at The Australian National University. It is an honour to work at the only university in Australia that offers degree-granting programs in biological anthropology.