About us
work in progress - we have some fantastic psychiatrists in our lab (who aren't listed here yet) working with hunter-gatherers to understand inter-population diversity in the manifestation, and wellbeing impact, of mentalising and ADHD-related traits; check back soon for more.
You can learn about the rest of the team below...
My research has two main strands which I investigate via fieldwork with hunter-gatherers and in London neighbourhoods. The first is elucidating why humans evolved to be such a prosocial species by examining how social and cooperative networks impact fitness in hunter-gatherer societies. My other interest lies in evolutionary perspectives on the aetiology of mental disorders. I explore the role of: i. evolutionary mismatch (discordances between contemporary lifestyles and those that certain psychological traits are adapted to); ii. cognitive advantages associated with subclinical levels of disorder-related traits; iii. socio-ecological factors that overstimulate plastic psychological processes. I am also testing the therapeutic efficacy of an evolutionary psychoeducation leaflet that I co-produced with perinatal psychiatry patients and clinicians.
My research focuses on evolutionary psychiatry, seeking to understand why mental disorders remain so common, heritable, and poorly explained by conventional approaches. My work addresses a fundamental scientific paradox: if natural selection optimises organisms, why do psychiatric conditions persist at such high rates? I have also worked on improving methods in evolutionary psychiatry, and more recently, I'm investigating the impact evolutionary explanations have on attitudes and stigmatisation of mental disorders.
My current research examines maternal wellbeing in UK cohousing and independent housing environments. Using a mixed-methods approach, I explore how community living and social support relate to maternal stress, loneliness, and psychological wellbeing, drawing on evolutionary theories of cooperative breeding and evolutionary mismatch. I am particularly interested in interdisciplinary research connecting evolutionary anthropology with public health and contemporary social issues.
In undergrad, I primarily did research on evolution and genetics. My undergraduate thesis sought to examine the genetic coregulation and potential coevolution of inflammation and depression within humans. In my MPhil, I have focused my research on evolutionary psychiatry and am using my dissertation to explore the evolutionary reasonings for schizophrenia, in particular the cliff-edge hypothesis. I am attending medical school in the fall and will continue doing research on how we can use evolution to improve human health.
I am interested in using evolutionary perspectives to help understand health, behaviour, relationships and, especially, in the context of the systems and cultures they produce and are produced by. In particular, I am interested in perinatal mental health, and the opportunity to build community through cooperative childrearing. My PhD research combines evolutionary theory with the ancient wisdom of the African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child”. What does a good village look like in a hyper individualistic society where we have not just lost ’the village’, but the entire mentality of co-operative childrearing? Given that we have lost the ancestral village, who is to say what a good village could and should look like? The answer may be different for different people. Therefore, my research aims to identify the ‘active ingredients’ of a ‘good’ social support system.
My research examines the various mechanisms via which digitalisation can both protect from and/or lead to mental health problems in novel ways. Current questions of interest include: (a) Why are people self-diagnosing themselves with mental health conditions? What role does social media play in this? (b) What does mental health look like in small-scale non-industrialised populations?