I’m recruiting PhD students at NYU (start Sept 2026).
Focus: cultural evolution, innovation & cooperation, AI & society, progress studies & development.

Deadline to apply is Dec 1- very soon.

I’ll share more about the move & new work soon.

Please share with students & retweet!

Thank you to @psmaldino.bsky.social and Christian Zehnder for serving on the committee. And thank you Maria for the post-defense coffee mug. It says "Block chords." Check out "You're My Everything" on /Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet/ for reference.

Congratulations to Dr @mariapykala.bsky.social for successfully defending her PhD thesis yesterday. Two big themes. 1) Social learning as a two-step process with psychological biases shaping both network formation and social learning given a network. 2) Cumulative cultural evolution in an AI world.

The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution hard copy

Physical copies of this 71-chapter tome now exist. Do encourage your library to buy a copy…also doubles as excellent door stop! Co-edited with Jamie Tehrani and @rachkendal.bsky.social. @oxunipress.bsky.social @durhamanthropology.bsky.social

Feature-based reward learning shapes human social learning strategies - Nature Human Behaviour This research advances a mechanistic reward learning account of social learning strategies. Through experiments and simulations, it shows how individuals learn to learn from others, dynamically shapin...

Through experiments and simulations, this study shows how individuals learn to learn from others, dynamically shaping the processes involved in cultural evolution. @davidschultner.bsky.social @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social
@lucasmolleman.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Word

@jeremykoster.bsky.social @avbell.bsky.social @drelenamiu.bsky.social @duhe.bsky.social @eapower.bsky.social @kevinlala.bsky.social @charlesefferson.bsky.social

Today @schimmelpfennig.bsky.social successfully defended his outstanding thesis on cultural evolution and organizational science. Congratulations, Dr. Schimmelpfennig!

Social clustering of preference for female genital mutilation/cutting in south-central Ethiopia - Nature Human Behaviour Recent estimates indicate that half of Ethiopian girls aged 15–19 years have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC). This socio-centric social network study estimates the social influenc...

This socio-centric social network study estimates the social influence and social selection on preference for cutting female relatives using data from 5163 Ethiopian Arsi Oromo adults. @drsarahmyers.bsky.social @bristolantharch.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social clustering of preference for female genital mutilation/cutting in south-central Ethiopia Nature Human Behaviour - Recent estimates indicate that half of Ethiopian girls aged 15–19 years have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC). This socio-centric social...

New paper with Eshetu Gurmu, Alex Alvergne
@danielredhead.bsky.social Janet Howard & Mhairi Gibson! rdcu.be/eqjfT

Image of cover of book called Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour, with a quote beside it saying, "Sense and Nonsense is the ultimate insider's guide to the history of one of our most ambitious attempts to understand ourselves" from Clark Barrett, University of California, LA.

The new edition of 'Sense & Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour', co-authored with
@kevinlala.bsky.social , is available!

Get 30% off (promotion code ASPROMP8): global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Ebook is available on Kindle.

Thank you to Prof. Clark Barrett for the endorsement! 🧪

The cover of randomness: validating implicit methods for the study of sensitive topics | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core The cover of randomness: validating implicit methods for the study of sensitive topics - Volume 7

Hello, Bluesky. I guess we're here now! New paper in EHS with Sonja Vogt. Among other activities, we replicate our original FGC results from Sudan (Efferson et al, 2015) with a new larger data set. tinyurl.com/knt2v9fr