Faculty Directory

Alvard, Michael Athreya, Sheela Bryant, Vaughn Busdiecker, Sara Carlson, David Carlson, Debbie Castor, Nicole Castro, Filipe Crisman, Kevin Dannhaeuser, Norbert de Ruiter, Darryl Dickson, D.Bruce Eckert, Suzanne Goebel, Ted Green, Tom Grider, Sylvia Gursky-Doyen, Sharon Hamilton, Donny Pulak, Cemal Smith, Wayne Thoms, Alston Vora, Neha Wachsmann, Shelley Waters, Mike Werner, Cynthia Winking, Jeff Wright, Lori

Jeff Winking Assistant Professor jwinking@tamu.edu ANTH 230 Vita Teaching Research Publications Showcase Committees Interests:  Human evolutionary ecology, parenting, marriage, family, senescence, Amazonia, Tsimane’ of Bolivia Jeff Winking specializes in the investigation of human behavior, reproduction and health from an evolutionary ecology perspective. This paradigm incorporates evolutionary logic to explore how behavioral strategies and biological systems respond to the competing demands of survival, growth, development, sociality, reproduction and parental care as they change throughout the life course and across contexts. Dr. Winking’s research has focused on understanding the adaptive functions of paternal investment in humans, and how these functions manifest themselves in fathering behavior. More recently, he has begun to explore various models concerning the fitness benefits associated with humans' remarkably long lifespan, as well as biological mechanisms that define patterns of senescence. To this end, Dr. Winking has been actively involved in a research project with collaborators Hillard Kaplan and Michael Gurven, investigating the Tsimane’ of central Bolivia. The main research goals focus on the accurate mapping of behavioral, economic, demographic and epidemiologic age profiles in order to test theories concerning the evolution of humans’ unique life histories.