.EDUCATION .
Ph.D. Anthropology. Emory University
M.S.PH. Epidemiology. Emory University
B.A. Anthropology. University of Colorado Boulder
CONTACT .
Email: kuzawa(at)northwestern.edu
Phone: 847-467-4302
Office: 1810 Hinman Ave, Room A54B
Personal Webpage
RESEARCH INTERESTS .
I am a biological anthropologist interested in developmental biology, human evolution, and health. My group’s research explores developmental influences on adult biology and health, the psychobiology of human fatherhood, non-genetic forms of biological inheritance, and the energetics and evolution of the human brain. Our work also addresses the history and misuse of race concepts in anthropology and beyond.
I care and think deeply about the societal implications of research in human biology, and am committed to engaging beyond anthropology and beyond academia. For example, I recently testified to the State of California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, and published a 2023 Op Ed in the Los Angeles Times highlighting how health disparities in the U.S. further justify reparations to Black Americans.
I received my PhD in Anthropology and MSPH in Epidemiology from Emory University. I am currently John D. MacArthur Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Fellow with the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, co-director of the Health Inequality Network of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group, and an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS .
In press Rosenbaum S, Kuzawa CW. The promise of great apes as model organisms for understanding the downstream consequences of early life experiences. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 2023 May 20:105240.
In press Manus MB, Watson E, Kuthyar S, Carba D, Belarmino NM, McDade TW, Kuzawa CW, Amato KR. Prenatal household size and composition are associated with infant fecal bacterial diversity in Cebu, Philippines. Am J Biol Anthropol.
2023 Kim AW, Said Mohamed R, Norris SA, Richter LM, Kuzawa CW. Psychological legacies of intergenerational trauma under South African apartheid: Prenatal stress predicts greater vulnerability to the psychological impacts of future stress exposure during late adolescence and early adulthood in Soweto, South Africa. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 64(1):110-124
2022 Kuzawa CW, Ryan CP, Adair LS, Lee NR, Carba DB, MacIsaac JL, Dever K, Atashzay P, Kobor MS, McDade TW, “Birth weight and maternal energy status during pregnancy as predictors of epigenetic age acceleration in young adults from metropolitan Cebu, Philippines” Epigenetics 17(11):1535-45.
2022 Rosenbaum S, Kuzawa CW, McDade TW, Avila J, Bechayda SA, Gettler LT. “Neither environmental harshness nor unpredictability predict reliance on alloparental care among families in Cebu, Philippines”. Development and Psychopathology 34(2):743-754.
2022 Aronoff J, Ragin A, Wu C, Markl M, Schnell S, Shaibani A, Blair C, Kuzawa CW, “Why do humans undergo an adiposity rebound? Exploring links with the energetic costs of brain development in childhood using MRI-based 4D measures of total cerebral blood flow.” Intl J Obesity 46(5):1044-50.
2022 Ryan CP, Rege RJ, Lee NR, Carba DB, Kobor MS, MacIsaac JL, Lin DS, Atashzay P, Kuzawa CW. “Maternal epigenetic clocks measured during pregnancy do not predict gestational age at delivery or offspring birth outcomes: a replication study in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines.” Clin Epigenetics 14(1): 78l
2022 Gettler LT, Rosenbaum S, Kuo PX, Sarma MS, Bechayda SA, McDade TW, Kuzawa CW. “Evidence for an adolescent sensitive period to family experiences influencing adult male testosterone production.” Proc Natl Acad Sci 119(23):e2202874119.
2022 Meloni M, Moll T, Issaka A, Kuzawa CW. “A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era” Amer J Hum Biol. 11:e23742
2021 Rosenbaum S, Kuzawa CW, McDade TW, Avila J, Bechayda SA, Gettler LT. “Fathers’ care in context: ‘facultative,’ flexible fathers respond to work demands and child age, but not to alloparental help, in Cebu, Philippines”. Evol Hum Behav 42(6)534-546.
2021 Rosenbaum S, Echardt W, Stoinski TS, Umuhoza R, Kuzawa CW, Santymire R. “Group structure, but not dominance rank, predicts fecal androgen metabolite concentrations of wild male mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei)”. Amer J Primatol83(8):e23295.
2021 Ryan CP, Kuzawa CW. “The temporary cost of dominance”. Elife 10:e68790
2021 Amato KR, Arrieta M, Azad MB, Bailey MT, Broussard JL5, Bruggeling CE, Claud EC, Costello EK, Davenport ER, Dutilh BE, Swain Ewald HA, Ewald P, Hanlon EC, Julion W, Keshavarzian A, Maurice CF, Miller G, Preidis G, Segurel L, Singer B, Subramanian S, Zhao L, Kuzawa CW “The Human Microbiome and Health Inequities” Proc Nat Acad Sciences
2020 Kuzawa CW, “Pregnancy as an intergenerational conduit of adversity: how nutritional and psychosocial stressors reflect different historical timescales of maternal experience” Current Opinion in Behavioral Sci 36: 42-47
2020 Ryan CP, Kuzawa CW “Germline epigenetic inheritance: Challenges and opportunities for linking human paternal experience with offspring biology and health” Evol Anthropol 29(4):180-200.
2020 Kuzawa CW, Adair L, Bechayda SA, Borja JB, Carba DB, Duazo PL, Eisenberg DTA, Georgiev AV, Gettler LT, Lee NR, Quinn EA, Rosenbaum S, Rutherford J, Ryan C, McDade TW, “Evolutionary life history theory as an organizing framework for cohort studies: insights form the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey” Annals Hum Biol 47(2):94-105.
2020 Thayer ZM, Rutherford J, Kuzawa CW “The Maternal Buffering Model: An evolutionary framework for pregnancy nutritional intervention” Evol Med Public Health 2020(1):14-17.
2020 Blair C, Kuzawa CW, Willoughby MT. “The development of executive function in early childhood is inversely related to change in body mass index: Evidence for an energetic trade-off?” Develop Sci 23(1)e12860.
2019 Kuzawa CW, Blair C. “A hypothesis linking the energy demand of the brain to lifetime obesity risk.” Proc Nat Acad Sciences 116(27):13266-75.
2019 Rutherford JN, deMartelly VA, Ragsdale HB, Avila JL, Lee NR, Kuzawa CW, “Global population variation in placental size and structure: Evidence from Cebu, Philippines.” Placenta 85:40-48.
2019 Eisenberg DTAE, Lee NR, Rej PH, Hayes, MG, Kuzawa CW (2019), “Older paternal ages and grandpaternal ages at conception predict longer telomeres in human descendants” Proc Roy Soc B 286(1903):20190800.
2019 Bütikofer A, Figlio D, Karbownik K, Kuzawa CW, Salvanes KG “Prenatal testosterone transfer from male twins reduces the fertility and socioeconomic success of their female co-twins” Proc Nat Acad Sciences 116(14):6749-53.
