Tuesday, April 15, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Carol M. Worthman is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology
at Emory and core faculty member of the MARIAL Center. She
also is chair of the Anthropology Department and director
of Laboratory of Comparative Human Biology at Emory. She is
involved in diverse lines of inquiry unified by a central
focus upon the biocultural interface. Biocultural dimensions
of the human condition remain largely uncharted and represent
immense opportunity for anthropological investigation, for
the empirical, theoretical, and pedagogical formulation of
new ways to understand what it is to be human. Human development
and reproduction each represent arenas in which the interplay
of biology and culture are especially central, so these form
major themes in her research and teaching.
Study topics have included causes and consequences of variation
in maturation schedules, applications of life history theory,
determinants of infant feeding and birth spacing, and variation
in male life history and reproduction. Other areas, such as
behavioral biology, arousal and attention regulation, developmental
epidemiology (including of risk for psychiatric disorders),
and comparative ecology of human sleep, are emerging areas
of intensifying research and theorization.
Her research for MARIAL concerns how intersections of work,
family, and well-being can help unravel a contradiction between
the myth of mintocracy (advancement through striving) versus
epidemiologic reality (well-being correlates with even small
class differences).
Professor Worthman received a B.A. in botany and biology
from Pomona College (Clairmont, CA). She studied endocrinology
at the University of California at San Diego Medical School,
and spent three years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Department of Nutrition and Food Science. She has a PhD in
biological anthropology from Harvard University.
