The courses I teach are consistent with my overall goal of helping students understand the ultimate and proximate sources of human variation, including how social environments and associated social inequities can create patterns of biological difference.

Introduction to Biological Anthropology

In this course students will learn about the field of biological anthropology as well as the main sub-fields within this discipline: skeletal biology, paleoanthropology, primatology, forensics, and human biology. In addition, students will be introduced to the theory of evolution and learn how this theory informs our understanding of humans and our closest living primate relatives.

This introductory course is primarily assessed via quizzes and exams. Research by other faculty and graduate students in the department are highlighted to demonstrate the range of approaches used to study biological anthropology, including a panel discussion on different types of fieldwork.

Human Biological Variation

How do human populations adapt to their local environments? What is more important for influencing human variation—genes or the environment? In this course students learn about patterns of modern human biological variation as well as research methods employed by biological anthropologists to study these patterns. Students also learn important skills for all anthropologists, including hypothesis generation, study design, how to write a grant, and how to be an effective reviewer.

For this course students complete a number of small assignments, as well as produce a grant proposal on a topic of their interest using the Wenner Gren Research Proposal format. An example of a typical weekly class assignment can be found here: Life History data from mammalian species exercise.

Health and Disease in Evolutionary Perspective

This course explores how principles from biological anthropology can provide insight into human health and disease. This course also asks students to critically analyze prevailing medical concepts of ‘normal’ physiology and illness. We adopt a comparative approach to consider the evolutionary, physiological, and cultural bases of human health and disease by examining case studies in the following areas:

• i) human diet and nutrition
• ii) demography, life history, and reproduction
• iii) pathogens, parasites, and immunity

For this course students complete short worksheets in small groups at the beginning of each class session that relate to the readings and upcoming lecture. Students also work in teams to present one evolutionary medicine hypothesis to the rest of the class. Assessment also occurs through a midterm and final exam.

Colonialism and its legacies

This course explores the emergence and the effects of settler colonialism. It is an Anthropology off-campus course in Aotearoa New Zealand. We will use a comparative approach to explore how colonization has shaped racialization, museums, tourism, environmental policy, education systems, incarceration, health, and resilience in Aotearoa and the United States. Assessment primarily occurs through essays and active participation in the course.

Evolution of Pregnancy, Birth, and Babies

This course examines human universals and cross-cultural variation in pregnancy, birth, and infant development. In the first section, principles of life history theory and human reproductive ecology are introduced, and students learn how assisted birth evolved in humans. In the second section, students analyze expectations and systems of pregnancy, birth, and infant care in a cross-cultural context. Throughout the course, students evaluate current social issues such as biomedical models of childbirth and infant sleep.

This is a small discussion course that is assessed via participation, a midterm, a birth story project, and a final project. The final project is organized via a Social Impact Practicum grant awarded by the Dartmouth Center for Service. For the final project students pair with a local maternal-child health nonprofit partner to deliver educational material of the partner’s choosing (e.g. informational booklets or publicly accessible presentations).

The image below is a student generated concept map for the course created during the last meeting of the term that highlights many of the topics discussed.