Riana Minocher
Guest
Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
e-mail:
riana_minocher@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Research Interests
I am an evolutionary biologist with broad interests. I have worked on a range of projects on human and non-human primate behaviour and ecology. I am currently particularly interested in the evolutionary processes that create and shape diversity between and within groups. Through my PhD research, I am keen on exploring the dynamics of cultural transmission and learning in human populations, to better understand the diverse patterns of behaviour we observe.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
| 2018-present | PhD Candidate, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, Culture |
| 2018-present | MSc, Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME). Uppsala University, Sweden Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany |
| 2012-2015 | BASc, Arts and Sciences, with First Class Honours. University College London, UK |
Research Experience
| March- August 2017 | Uppsala University, with Dr. Katerina Guschanski. Prepared 16S rRNA libraries for microbial DNA in faecal samples of Grauer’s gorillas; developed lab protocols, bioinformatic pipelines and assessed effects of social group, age, sex and diet on microbial profiles |
| September 2016-February 2017 | Emory University, with Dr. Adrian Jaeggi. Conducted a study on polygyny in a human cross-cultural sample, implementing phylogenetic comparative methods in R |
| May-August 2016 | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, with Dr. Barbara Fruth. Organised six years of unstructured field observations on indicators of health in two communities of wild bonobos; analysed social and ecological correlates of health issues |
Awards and achievements
| 2015-2017 | Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree Scholarship, funded by the EU |
| 2015 | Dean’s List for Academic Excellence, University College London (UCL) |
| 2013-2014 | Best Academic Performance Per Pathway; years 1 and 2 at UCL |
| 2011 | CIE Outstanding Learner Award - Top in India, Across 5 AS Levels |
| 2011 | CIE Outstanding Learner Award - Top in India, Literature in English |
Related Experience
| September-December 2017 | Divemaster Trainee, Dive Blue Motion/ Luminocean, Banda Islands, Indonesia. Trained as SSI Divemaster; collected data for Luminocean’s marine conservation research projects |
| January-March 2016 | Field Assistant, Gashaka Primate Project, Gashaka-Gumti National Park, Nigeria. Conducted focal observations of habituated baboons; collected and analysed data on chimpanzee nest trees to calculate decay and reuse rates of sleeping nests |
| September 2013-July 2015 | UCL Student Ambassador, University College London, UK. Conducted workshops and events to help motivate young people to pursue Higher Education, and improve their reading, writing and presentation skills |
| January-August 2015 | Personal Tutor, Tavistock Tutors, London, UK. Privately tutored A-level and GCSE students in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and English |
Skills
| Data | R (proficient), ArcGIS, Python (basic) |
| Laboratory | DNA library preparation |
Languages
| English | Native |
| French | Intermediate B2 |
Publications
Minocher, R., Borgerhoff Mulder, M., & Ross, C. (2024). Little evidence that nonmonogamous family structures are detrimental to children’s well-being in Mpimbwe, Tanzania. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(52): e2407785121. |
Open AccessMichel, A., Minocher, R., Niehoff, P., Li, Y., Nota, K., Gadhvi, M. A., Su, J., Iyer, N., Porter, A., Ngobobo‐As‐Ibungu, U., Binyinyi, E., Nishuli Pekeyake, R., Parducci, L., Caillaud, D., & Guschanski, K. (2023). Isolated Grauer's gorilla populations differ in diet and gut microbiome. Molecular Ecology, 32(23), 6523-6542. |
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Trumble, B. C., Charifson, M., Kraft, T., Garcia, A. R., Cummings, D. K., Hooper, P., Lea, A. J., Eid Rodriguez, D., Koebele, S. V., Buetow, K., Beheim, B., Minocher, R., Gutierrez, M., Thomas, G. S., Gatz, M., Stieglitz, J., Finch, C. E., Kaplan, H., & Gurven, M. (2023). Apolipoprotein-ε4 is associated with higher fecundity in a natural fertility population. Science Advances, 9(32). |
Minocher, R. (2022). Reproducibility and replication in evolutionary anthropology. PhD Thesis, Universität, Leipzig. |
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Minocher, R., & Ross, C. T. (2022). Spousal age-gaps, partner preferences, and consequences for well-being in four Colombian communities. Evolution and Human Behavior, 43(5), 394-407. |
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Redhead, D., Minocher, R., & Deffner, D. (2022). Towards a computational network theory of social groups. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45: e120, pp. 46-48. |
Minocher, R., Atmaca, S., Bavero, C., McElreath, R., & Beheim, B. A. (2021). Estimating the reproducibility of social learning research published between 1955 and 2018. Royal Society Open Science, 8: 210450. |
Minocher, R., Duda, P., & Jaeggi, A. V. (2019). Explaining marriage patterns in a globally representative sample through socio-ecology and population history: A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis using a new supertree. Evolution and Human Behavior, 40(2), 176-187. |
Minocher, R. and Sommer V. (2017). Why do mothers harm their babies? Evolutionary Perspectives. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 41(4), 335-350.
Sommer, V., Minocher, R. and Lowe, A. (2016). Entry Infanticide. In: Hillary Callan (ed), The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (12 vol). NJ: Wiley-Blackwell
Presentations
| 2021 | Minocher, Riana and Bret Beheim. An evolutionary demographic decomposition of Spanish-speaking among the indigenous Tsimane of Bolivia. Cultural Evolution Society, Sapporo, Japan (held online). |
| 2020 | Minocher, Riana and Bret Beheim. Reproducibility of social learning research. Animal Behaviour Society (held online). |
| 2019 | Minocher, Riana and Bret Beheim. Quantifying reproducibility of social learning research. European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA), Toulouse, France. |
| 2018 | Minocher, Riana and Katerina Guschanski. Ecology and sociality shape the wild primate gut microbiome. EVOLUTION 2018, Montpellier, France. |
| 2017 | Minocher, Riana, Pavel Duda and Adrian V. Jaeggi. Non-independence in the SCCS: polygyny and the effect of cultural history. European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA), Paris, France. |
Invited Talks
| 2021 | Minocher, Riana. Corrections to the scientific record: insights from the field of evolutionary anthropology. Panel discussion at Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (held online). |
| 2021 | Minocher, Riana. Challenges to reproducibility of research on the topic of “social learning”. Mini-note at Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (held online). |
| 2020 | Minocher, Riana. Estimating the reproducibility of the social learning research literature, Keynote at Toronto Data Workshop (held online). |