Bret Beheim
Research staff
Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
phone: +49 (0) 341 3550 310
e-mail:
bret_beheim@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
I use the tools of evolutionary ecology to help understand cumulative cultural dynamics in human societies. Specifically, I look at innovation and strategic retention of ideas and technology in noisy environments, and the demographic aspects of cultural change. I do this through formal theoretical models, the analysis of large-scale economic and behavioral datasets, and through ethnographic fieldwork with Amazonian horticulturalists in collaboration with the Tsimane Health and Life History Project.
Curriculum Vitae
Fields of Interest
Cultural evolution, behavioral ecology, mathematical modeling, East Asia, Latin America, evolutionary demography, cliodynamics
Appointments
| 2012-present | Post-doctoral Fellow. Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico. Albuquerque |
Education
| 2007-2012 | Ph.D. Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA |
| 2005-2006 | M.A. Social Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA |
| 2000-2004 | B.A. Honors. Anthropology/History. University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
Grants, Fellowships, Awards
| 2015 | “The Human Life Course and the Biodemography of Aging”, Co-Investigator, National Institutes of Health / National Institute on Aging $590,659 |
| 2014 | Administrative Supplement to “The Human Life Course and the Biodemography of Aging”, Co-Investigator National Institutes of Health / National Institute on Aging $15,000 |
| 2014 | “Surviving the Flood: Vulnerability, Risk Management, and Resilience among Tsimane Forager-Farmers of Bolivia”, Co-Investigator National Science Foundation $126,000 |
| 2009 | Graduate Fellowship Block Grant The University of California $10,800 |
| 2007 | Graduate Scholars Fellowship in Ecology The University of California $34,022 |
| 2004 | Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society |
Field Research & Internships
| 2014 | German Busch Hospital, Trinidad, Bolivia. Supervised medical scanning of Tsimane patients, translation for US cardiologists. |
| 2014 | Tsimane Villages, Beni Department, Bolivia. Interviews with Tsimane people on technological diffusion, market integration and media acculturation. |
| 2013 | Tsimane Villages, Beni Department, Bolivia. Interviews with Tsimane people on language evolution, horticultural focal follows, and energy-expenditure sampling. |
| 2008 | Central Valley Communities, California, USA. Interviews with city leaders and urban planners regarding approaches to climate change and sustainability. |
| 2009 | Santa Fe Institute. Research design and analysis for ethnographic datasets from 21 anthropological field sites. |
| 2004 | Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara. Marine sciences geographic information systems (GIS) technician. |
| 2002 | Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Digitized historical census archives for faculty project on 19th-century Irish immigration to California. |
Teaching
Primary Instructor (* = 50/50 co-instructor)
| 2013, 2014, 2015 | ANTH 160 – The Human Life Course |
| 2011, 2012 | ESP 178 – Applied Research Methods |
| 2014 | ANTH 360 – Human Behavioral Ecology* |
| 2014 | ANTH 560 – Research Computing in Evolutionary Anthropology* |
| 2011 | ANT 50 – Evolution and Human Nature |
| 2010 | ANT 102 – Cultural Ecology* |
Teaching Assistant
| 2010, 2011, 2012 | BIS 2B – Ecology and Evolution |
| 2011 | ANT 1 – Physical Anthropology |
| 2009 | ANT 131 – Ecology and Politics |
| 2009 | ESP 10 – Current Issues in the Environment |
Service to the Profession
Public White Papers
| 2009 | Lubell, M., Beheim, B.A., Hillis, V. & Handy, S. (2009) Achieving Sustainability in California’s Central Valley. UC Davis Sustainable Transportation Center |
| 2003 | Beheim, B.A. & Reis, M. (2003) A Theory of Social Formalism: The Four Horsemen and the New Deal. Law and Society Review at the University of California, Santa Barbara II:85-94. |
Symposium & Seminar Participation
| 2015 | Beheim, B.A. “Estimating Heritabilities of Reaction Norms with Directed Acyclic Graphs” Dynamics of Wealth Inequality and Family Structure, Santa Fe Institute |
| 2012 | Beheim, B.A. “Strategic Social Learning and Evolutionary Arms Races in the Game of Go”, Santa Fe Institute |
| 2012 | Beheim, B.A. “Evolutionary Decomposition and the Dynamics of Inequality” Dynamics of Wealth Inequality and Family Structure, Santa Fe Institute |
| 2011 | Beheim, B.A. “Developing Measures of Cultural Variation and Dynamics in Hokkaido, Japan”, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University |
Reviewing
Journal of Theoretical Biology, Advances in Complex Systems, Human Nature, Evolution and Human Behavior
Professional Memberships & Participation
- American Anthropological Association
- Human Behavior and Evolution Society
- American Association of Physical
- Anthropologists Principle Organizer
- California Undergraduate Anthropology Conference, May 2004
- Anthropology Student Union President (2003-2004)
Recent Collaborators
- Michael Gurven (UCSB)
- Adrian Jaeggi (UCSB)
- Aaron Blackwell (UCSB)
- Anne Pisor (UCSB)
- Sam Bowles (SFI)
- Paul Smaldino (UCD)
- Paul Hooper (Emory)
- Ryan Baldini (Stanford)
- Eric Schniter (Chapman)
- Jonathan Stieglitz (IAST)
- Richard McElreath (UCD)
- Ben Trumble (UCSB)
- Siobhan Mattison (UNM)
- Martin Muller (UNM)
- Melissa Emery Thompson (UNM)
- Chris Rowan (UNM Cardiology)
- Monique Borgerhoff Mulder (UCD)
Language & Technical Proficiency
- Japanese,intermediate proficiency
- Spanish, intermediate proficiency
- R Statistical Computing Language
- TeX Publishing System
- ANSI C Programming Language
- 6502 Microprocessor Assembly Language
- *NIX operating systems
- ArcGIS Computer Mapping Suite
- Stata Statistical Computing Suite
- MATLAB Computing Suite
- Mathematics through Calculus and Linear Algebra
Avocations
- Go (weiqui): 5 kyu on Kisedo Go Server
- Rowing: 650,000 meters rowed
- Retrocomputing
- Rock collecting
- Saxophone Kendo (Japanese fencing)