Here We Are

Dr. Scott Cloutier is an Assistant Research Professor at Arizona State University. This week we talk about sustainability, happiness, and the value of the arts and social interaction in our every day well-being.

Kim Bassos-Hull is a senior biologist at the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium. This week we talk about dolphins, plankton, marine biology, and how sometimes evolution leads species right back into the ocean.

Douglas T. Kenrick is Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His research and writing integrate three scientific syntheses of the last few decades: evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and dynamical systems theory.

"Michael Garfield is a bio-mechanical lightning rod, he possess a keen intellect and possibly too much talent, and I have never seen him do anything other than stimulate, antagonise, elevate, shake-not-stir, and generally get involved in the center of where ever his roaming griot spirit might be..." – James Oroc, author of Tryptamine Palace

Dr. Elser's research involves the integrative field of biological stoichiometry, the study of balance of energy and multiple chemical elements in living systems. While this work is primarily ecological in focus and includes studies of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and biota, the approach uses an evolutionary perspective to integrate levels of organization from the molecule and cell to the ecosystem. Specific studies involve observational and experimental studies at various scales, including laboratory cultures, short-term field experiments and sustained whole-ecosystem manipulations. Over the years, field sites have included the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario, Canada; lakes of the Arctic; lakes, forests, and grasslands of the upper Midwest; desert springs in Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert; and the surrounding Sonoran Desert. In addition, Dr. Elser collaborates extensively with mathematicians in developing quantitative theoretical approaches to these questions. In more recent work he has extended the work to investigate the connections among C:N:P stoichiometry, growth rate, rRNA physiology and genetics, and ecological dynamics in diverse biota and ecosystems and to evaluate the application of these ideas to tumor dynamics. Currently, he is an active member of the ASU’s NASA-funded Astrobiology project “Follow the Elements” and a co-organizer of ASU’s Sustainable Phosphorus Initiative.

Athena Aktipis is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Arizona State University, co-Director of the Human Generosity Project and Director of Human and Social Evolution and co-founder of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Aktipis completed her BA at Reed College (Psychology), her PhD at University of Pennsylvania (Psychology) and post-doctoral work at University of Arizona (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology). She is a cooperation theorist, theoretical evolutionary biologist, and cancer biologist who now works at the intersection of these fields. Dr. Aktipis is the author of the forthcoming book from Princeton University Press "Evolution in the flesh: Cancer and the transformation of life."

Steven L. Neuberg is an experimental social psychologist whose research has contributed to topics pertaining to person perception, impression formation, stereotyping, prejudice, self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotype threat, and prosocial behavior.

Dr. Fewell’s area of research is the behavioral ecology and evolution of social insects. She is interested in how task organization evolves within insect societies and in the question of how social groups function as self-organizing networks. Her current work focuses on how intrinsic variation in task performance by individual workers affects colony patterns of division of labor. Additionally, she is examining the role of genotypic variation in colony task performance.She is also interested in social insect foraging ecology. Her work in this area examines flexibility in individual foraging decisions, as well as the role of foraging energetics and nutrient diversity in foraging strategy.

Dr. Aaron Blaisdell received a B.A. in Biological Anthropology from SUNY Stony Brook; an M.A. in Biological Anthropology from Kent State University; and his Ph.D. in Psychology (Behavioral Neuroscience focus) from SUNY Binghamton. He then spent two years as a Postdoctoral fellow in Psychology at Tufts University and became a professor of Psychology at UCLA in 2001. Dr. Blaisdell is Currently Professor with tenure at UCLA and is a participating member of the UCLA Brain Research Institute and the Integrative Center for Learning and Memory. He has previously served as President of the International Society for Comparative Psychology and of the Ancestral Health Society.

Dr. Shah enjoys orthopaedics because it allows him to get patients back up on their feet and into the comfort of their own home as quickly as possible. He approaches his patient relationships with the goal to educate, as each individual and each situation is unique. “I try to communicate with patients on their level, rather than throwing technical information at them,” he says.

Accurate perception of visual motion is critical for survival. In humans, motion perception relies in large part on binocular combination of signals from the two eyes. But which signals, and how are they combined? Dr. Rokers and his lab aim to increase our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying motion and depth perception using behavioral experiments (psychophysics), neuro-imaging (fMRI), and computational modeling. His recent findings suggest that 3D motion perception is based on two distinct signals, binocular disparity and monocular motion. He aims to understand how these signals are processed and how they are combined so we can successfully interact with our dynamic three-dimensional world.

Todd K. Shackelford received his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Psychology in 1997 from The University of Texas at Austin, his MA in Psychology from The University of Michigan in 1995, and his BA in Psychology from The University of New Mexico in 1993.

Dr Robbie Wilson is an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. This week we talk about fitness and the handicap principle.

This week I'm joined in a mystery location to talk with three anonymous zookeepers about what it is like working behind the scenes at a zoo. AND I even got a free trip to a zoo out of the deal! Elephants, and monkeys, and lizards! Oh my!

Nicole Prause is the principal investigator at the Sexual Psychophysiology and Affective Neuroscience (SPAN) Laboratory. Why should you be interested in Nicole Prause’s Sexual Psycholphysiology and Affective Neuroscience lab? For starters, how about vaginal flashlights, 3D printed dildos, and anal probes? What else could you ask for?