|
Jeffrey Winking, Ph.D. |
|
Jeff Winking MSC01-1040, Anthropology |
|
I am an anthropologist currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Institute. Since 2002, I have been collaborating with Hillard Kaplan and Michael Gurven as part of the UNM-UCSB Tsimane Health and Life History Project. This project is a joint health and anthropology project conducted among the Tsimane, an indigenous forager-farming group living in the southwest corner of the department of Beni, in lowland Bolivia. The main research goals focus on the accurate mapping of behavioral, economic, demographic and epidemiologic age profiles in order to test theories concerning the evolution of humans’ unique life histories. I investigate human behavior, reproduction and health from an evolutionary ecology perspective. This paradigm incorporates evolutionary logic to explore how behavioral strategies and biological mechanisms vary in response to the competing demands of survival, growth, finding a spouse, reproduction and parental care as they change throughout the life course and across contexts. I am particularly interested in understanding the adaptive functions of paternal investment in humans. Specifically, I have explored how paternal involvement can increase men’s fitness through the enhancement of offspring quality, the retention of marital partners, and fertility within unions. More recently, I have begun to explore various hypothesized models concerning the fitness benefits associated with humans' remarkably long lifespan, as well as biological mechanisms that define patterns of senescence. |