Speaker: Dr. Shyamalika Gopalan, Postdoctoral Fellow, Duke University

Speaker: Dr. Andrew Moeller, Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University

Abstract: 

Abstract: Mammals harbor complex gut bacterial communities that are deeply integrated with their hosts’ phenotypes and fitness, but the evolutionary histories of these symbioses are poorly understood. In this seminar, I will show that gut bacteria have co-diversified with mammalian species over millions of years, and I will present experimental evidence that these long-term, intimate interactions have shaped the adaptive evolution of both...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: "The evolution of the mammalian gut microbiome"

Speaker: Dr. Nathan Thompson, Associate Professor of Anatomy, New York Institute of Technology

Speaker: Dr. Damian Blasi, Harvard University Dept of Human Evolutionary Biology

Speaker: Dr. Sahin Naqvi, Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University, Chemical Systems Biology

Speaker: Dr. Glennis Logsdon, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Genome Sciences

Speaker: Dr. Hakhamanesh Mostafavi, Stanford University, Postdoctoral Scholar in Genetics

Speaker:

Dr. Jessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Yale University

Title: 

Paleoanthropology and Paleoarchaeology in the southernmost Rift of eastern Africa

Abstract: 

The East African Rift Valley System is famous for fossil and archaeological discoveries that have transformed our understanding of human origins. Most of these discoveries are from densely-clustered locations in the northern and central Rift, leaving a gap >2500km in distance to the next major...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: Guest Speaker Professor Jessica Thompson

Speaker: Dr. Enquye Negash, Postdoctoral Scientist at the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, George Washington University

Title: "Modern African ecosystems as analogues: Implications for hominin environments"

Abstract: 

Environmental change is considered a key driver of human evolution and several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the outcomes of proposed environmental changes. One approach to testing these hypotheses is reconstructing the paleoenvironment of hominin bearing sites and looking for evidence of temporal...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: "Modern African ecosystems as analogues: Implications for hominin environments"

Speaker:

Dr. Scott Blumenthal, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Oregon

 

Abstract: 

A fundamental challenge of human evolutionary studies is understanding the role of climatic and ecosystem change in shaping hominin biology and behavior. Despite decades of research, and significant efforts aimed at reconstructing the environmental context of human evolution, there remains relatively little clarity on fundamental aspects of hominin paleobiology that govern how hominins interact with their surroundings, and...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: "Isotopic studies of hominin paleobiology"

Title:

Unlocking the secrets of the sweaty, naked ape: A genetic roadmap to the developmental origins, evolutionary history, and regenerative potential of human hair and sweat glands.

 

Abstract:

The skin and its major resident appendages, hair follicles and eccrine sweat glands, constitute the interface between humans and the environment and perform critical functions in human thermoregulation, barrier protection and sensory perception. As a result, evolutionary selection on human skin, hair, and sweat glands has...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: Dr. Yana Kamberov

Speaker: Dr. Ammie Kalan, Assistant Professor, University of Victoria 

Date/Time: Thursday, November 18 at 12:00 pm (noon)

Abstract: The Pan African Programme: the Cultured Chimpanzee ('PanAf') has collected data on over 40 wild chimpanzee communities from 2010 to 2020 using a standardized protocol. All chimpanzee communities were unhabituated to researchers at the time of data collection therefore remote, infrared sensor cameras were the primary method for recording behavioural observations. Using such an approach, the...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: "Chimpanzee Behavioural Flexibility: A Pan African Perspective"

Speaker: Dr. Robert Shave, School of Health & Exercise Sciences, University of British Columbia

Outline: Cardiac structural and functional remodeling in response to athletic training is a well-described phenomenon in human athletes. Using auscultation, percussion and palpation physicians as early as the 1890s demonstrated increased cardiac dimensions and athletic bradycardia. Subsequently, imaging technologies have enabled the detailed characterization of the human athlete’s heart.  However, few of these studies consider the evolutionary...

Read more about HEB Colloquium: "The role of physical activity in shaping ape and human hearts"

HEB Professor Terry Capellini will deliver a special lecture that will discuss how evolution targeted our prenatal development to shape our skeletons and why we get specific skeletal diseases.

Speaker: Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen

Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen FBA FBPsS FMedSci is a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College.