Biography

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Theoretical Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. My research focusses broadly on the evolutionary origins and dynamics of social behaviours, such as individual cooperation, group coordination, and cultural evolution. In previous projects I studied self-organisation and division of labour in social insects. I continued this research by looking at the effect of competition on the utility of social learning, the fundamental mechanism that allows culture to evolve. At my current position in Philadelphia, I study the co-evolution of culture and population structure.

I am interested in the complex feedbacks between individual actors, the group, and the environment. My goal is to use theory to guide research questions, produce testable hypothesis, and build bridges between the diverse disciplines involved in the study of cultural evolution.