The Forager Child Studies interdisciplinary research group was founded in 2016 by Sheina Lew-Levy, Noa Lavi, Rachel Reckin, and Kate Ellis-Davies at the University of Cambridge. We are interested in the pasts, presents, and futures of children's lives in foraging and mixed-subsistence societies, with a particular focus on learning.
CORE TEAM
Noa Lavi
Co-Director
Noa Lavi holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Haifa. She holds a BA in Archaeology from Tel-Aviv University and a MA in Anthropology from the University of Haifa. She studies hunting and gathering people in India, focusing on people’s experience and social relationships in light of development intervention, assimilation pressure and school education. Read more about Noa’s work here.
Sheina Lew-Levy holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Sheina is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the department of psychology at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on social learning and play among BaYaka and Hadza forager children. You can read more about her past and present work here.
Co-Director
Sheina Lew-Levy
Rachel Reckin holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge. She holds a MA in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, and was formerly an archaeologist for the US Forest Service. Her research interests include prehistoric human adaptations to high altitudes, variation in lithic technology, typology, paleoclimates, landscape archaeology, and hunter-gatherer ethnography. Learn more about Rachel here.
Rachel Reckin
Co-Director
Dorsa Amir
Director of Outreach
Dorsa Amir is an evolutionary anthropologist interested in how differing cultural and ecological environments shape the developing mind. She received her PhD from Yale University in 2018. She is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Boston College Department of Psychology. Her primary fieldwork is with the forager-horticulturalist Shuar of eastern Ecuador. Learn more about Dorsa’s work here, and follow her on Twitter.
Aishah Ali studied Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge which allowed her to gain insight into the way that psychology overlaps with a range of fields including education, biological anthropology and sociology. She currently works as a private tutor for GCSE and A-level students. Her research interests lie within the realm of education and she is particularly fascinated by the way that children from varied backgrounds learn within a school setting.
Research Assistant
Aishah Ali
Stephen Kissler holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He holds BS and MS degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder. He is interested in the transmission of things — be they pathogens, objects, or ideas. His current projects include modelling the spatial transmission of pandemic influenza, projecting the costs of hepatitis C treatment, and characterising how children in hunter-gatherer societies teach one another.
Stephen Kissler
Project Mathematician
Research Affiliates
Affiliates of FCS are researchers who focus on issues related to our mission statement. Affiliates contribute blog posts, help curate content, and propose relevant reviews that the team helps operationalize. If you’d like to be an affiliate, drop us a line at foragerchildstudies@gmail.com
Renée Hagen
PhD Student, UCLA
Renée conducts research among the Agta hunter-gatherers of the Philippines and is interested in infant-directed speech, social learning and children’s production under various environmental constraints.
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Eleanor Fleming
PhD Student, Durham University
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Eleanor's research focuses on the evolution of storytelling, the phylogenetics of folktales, and global cross-cultural patterns of storytelling variation in small-scale societies.
Adam H. Boyette
Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Adam has done fieldwork in the Congo Basin with BaYaka foragers and their farmer neighbors since 2008. You can learn more about Adam's research here.
Ilaria Pretelli
PhD Student, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Ilaria's research focuses on how children from Pemba, Zanzibar interact with the natural environment, how this affects the conservation of natural resources, and the evolution of human life history. You can learn more about Ilaria's research here.
Sarah M. Pope
Postdoc, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Sarah conducts fieldwork with the Himba of northern Namibia as well as with BaYaka foragers and Bondongo farmers in the Republic of the Congo. You can learn more about Sarah’s work here, and follow her on Instagram.
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Annemieke Milks
Postdoc, University College London
​
Annemieke's research interests include Middle and Late Pleistocene hunting technologies, use of organics as raw materials in human evolution, hunter-gatherer ethnography, and the evolutionary origins of music.
David Friesem
Researcher, University of Cambridge
David is an anthropological archaeologist who studies the human past by combining geoarchaeology, ethnography and prehistoric archaeology. Read more about David’s work here.
Helen Elizabeth Davis
Postdoctoral Scholar, Harvard University
Helen uses theoretical perspectives from behavioral ecology & cultural evolution to better understand cognitive development & cognitive decline in humans. Her field research is conducted among the Tsimane, the OvaTwa, and the Himba. She is also the co-founder of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit One Pencil Project.
Erik Ringen
PhD Student, Emory University
Erik is an anthropologist studying the coevolution of subsistence and social organization. His fieldwork is with Tsimane farmer-foragers in lowland Bolivia. He specializes in quantitative comparative methods such as phylogenetic analysis and other multilevel modeling techniques for understanding human variation.
CORE TEAM
Noa Lavi
Co-Director
Noa Lavi holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Haifa. She holds a BA in Archaeology from Tel-Aviv University and a MA in Anthropology from the University of Haifa. She studies hunting and gathering people in India, focusing on people’s experience and social relationships in light of development intervention, assimilation pressure and school education. Read more about Noa’s work here.
Sheina Lew-Levy holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Sheina is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the department of psychology at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on social learning and play among BaYaka and Hadza forager children. You can read more about her past and present work here.
Co-Director
Sheina Lew-Levy
Rachel Reckin holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge. She holds a MA in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, and was formerly an archaeologist for the US Forest Service. Her research interests include prehistoric human adaptations to high altitudes, variation in lithic technology, typology, paleoclimates, landscape archaeology, and hunter-gatherer ethnography. Learn more about Rachel here.
Rachel Reckin
Co-Director
Dorsa Amir
Director of Outreach
Dorsa Amir is an evolutionary anthropologist interested in how differing cultural and ecological environments shape the developing mind. She received her PhD from Yale University in 2018. She is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Boston College Department of Psychology. Her primary fieldwork is with the forager-horticulturalist Shuar of eastern Ecuador. Learn more about Dorsa’s work here, and follow her on Twitter.
Aishah Ali studied Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge which allowed her to gain insight into the way that psychology overlaps with a range of fields including education, biological anthropology and sociology. She currently works as a private tutor for GCSE and A-level students. Her research interests lie within the realm of education and she is particularly fascinated by the way that children from varied backgrounds learn within a school setting.
Research Assistant
Aishah Ali
Stephen Kissler holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He holds BS and MS degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder. He is interested in the transmission of things — be they pathogens, objects, or ideas. His current projects include modelling the spatial transmission of pandemic influenza, projecting the costs of hepatitis C treatment, and characterising how children in hunter-gatherer societies teach one another.
Stephen Kissler
Project Mathematician
Research Affiliates
Affiliates of FCS are researchers who focus on issues related to our mission statement. Affiliates contribute blog posts, help curate content, and propose relevant reviews that the team helps operationalize. If you’d like to be an affiliate, drop us a line at foragerchildstudies@gmail.com
Sarah M. Pope
Postdoc, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Sarah conducts fieldwork with the Himba of northern Namibia as well as with BaYaka foragers and Bondongo farmers in the Republic of the Congo. You can learn more about Sarah’s work here, and follow her on Instagram.
​
Annemieke Milks
Postdoc, University College London
​
Annemieke's research interests include Middle and Late Pleistocene hunting technologies, use of organics as raw materials in human evolution, hunter-gatherer ethnography, and the evolutionary origins of music.
David Friesem
Researcher, University of Cambridge
David is an anthropological archaeologist who studies the human past by combining geoarchaeology, ethnography and prehistoric archaeology. Read more about David’s work here.
Helen Elizabeth Davis
Postdoctoral Scholar, Harvard University
Helen uses theoretical perspectives from behavioral ecology & cultural evolution to better understand cognitive development & cognitive decline in humans. Her field research is conducted among the Tsimane, the OvaTwa, and the Himba. She is also the co-founder of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit One Pencil Project.
Erik Ringen
PhD Student, Emory University
Erik is an anthropologist studying the coevolution of subsistence and social organization. His fieldwork is with Tsimane farmer-foragers in lowland Bolivia. He specializes in quantitative comparative methods such as phylogenetic analysis and other multilevel modeling techniques for understanding human variation.
CORE TEAM
Noa Lavi
Co-Director
Noa Lavi holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Haifa. She holds a BA in Archaeology from Tel-Aviv University and a MA in Anthropology from the University of Haifa. She studies hunting and gathering people in India, focusing on people’s experience and social relationships in light of development intervention, assimilation pressure and school education. Read more about Noa’s work here.
Sheina Lew-Levy holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Sheina is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Durham University. Her research focuses on social learning and play among BaYaka and Hadza forager children. You can read more about her past and present work here.
Co-Director
Sheina Lew-Levy
Rachel Reckin holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge. She holds a MA in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, and was formerly an archaeologist for the US Forest Service. Her research interests include prehistoric human adaptations to high altitudes, variation in lithic technology, typology, paleoclimates, landscape archaeology, and hunter-gatherer ethnography. Learn more about Rachel here.
Rachel Reckin
Co-Director
Dorsa Amir
Director of Outreach
Dorsa Amir is a developmental scientist interested in how differing cultural and ecological environments shape the developing mind. She received her PhD from Yale University in 2018. She is a postdoctoral research fellow in the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology. Her primary fieldwork is with the forager-horticulturalist Shuar of eastern Ecuador. Learn more about Dorsa’s work here, and follow her on Twitter.
Aishah Ali studied Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Cambridge which allowed her to gain insight into the way that psychology overlaps with a range of fields including education, biological anthropology and sociology. She currently works as a private tutor for GCSE and A-level students. Her research interests lie within the realm of education and she is particularly fascinated by the way that children from varied backgrounds learn within a school setting.
Research Assistant
Aishah Ali
Stephen Kissler holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He holds BS and MS degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder. He is interested in the transmission of things — be they pathogens, objects, or ideas. His current projects include modelling the spatial transmission of pandemic influenza, projecting the costs of hepatitis C treatment, and characterising how children in hunter-gatherer societies teach one another.
Stephen Kissler
Erik Ringen
Consultant Data Scientist
Erik is an anthropologist studying the coevolution of subsistence and social organization. His fieldwork is with Tsimane farmer-foragers in lowland Bolivia. He specializes in quantitative comparative methods such as phylogenetic analysis and other multilevel modeling techniques for understanding human variation. Learn more here.
Research Affiliates
Affiliates of FCS are researchers who focus on issues related to our mission statement. Affiliates contribute blog posts, help curate content, and propose relevant reviews that the team helps operationalize. If you’d like to be an affiliate, drop us a line at foragerchildstudies@gmail.com
Sarah M. Pope
Postdoc, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Sarah conducts fieldwork with the Himba of northern Namibia as well as with BaYaka foragers and Bondongo farmers in the Republic of the Congo. You can learn more about Sarah’s work here, and follow her on Instagram.
​
Annemieke Milks
Postdoc, University College London
​
Annemieke's research interests include Middle and Late Pleistocene hunting technologies, use of organics as raw materials in human evolution, hunter-gatherer ethnography, and the evolutionary origins of music.
David Friesem
Researcher, University of Cambridge
David is an anthropological archaeologist who studies the human past by combining geoarchaeology, ethnography and prehistoric archaeology. Read more about David’s work here.
Helen Elizabeth Davis
Postdoctoral Scholar, Harvard University
Helen uses theoretical perspectives from behavioral ecology & cultural evolution to better understand cognitive development & cognitive decline in humans. Her field research is conducted among the Tsimane, the OvaTwa, and the Himba. She is also the co-founder of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit One Pencil Project.
Zach Garfield
Research Fellow, IAST
Zach studies social learning, decision-making, and leadership dynamics, including conflict resolution and punishment systems using evolutionary and cross-cultural frameworks. Since 2015 he has worked in Southwest Ethiopia, including with the Chabu forager-horticulturalists and Hamar agro-pastoralists and he co-directs the Omo Valley Research Project.
Eleanor Fleming
PhD Student, Durham University
​
Eleanor's research focuses on the evolution of storytelling, the phylogenetics of folktales, and global cross-cultural patterns of storytelling variation in small-scale societies.
Adam H. Boyette
Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Adam has done fieldwork in the Congo Basin with BaYaka foragers and their farmer neighbors since 2008. You can learn more about Adam's research here.
Ilaria Pretelli
PhD Student, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Ilaria's research focuses on how children from Pemba, Zanzibar interact with the natural environment, how this affects the conservation of natural resources, and the evolution of human life history. You can learn more about Ilaria's research here.
Guillermo
Zorrilla-Revilla
PhD Student, University of Burgos
DeGuillermo is a researcher focused on the cost of children's subsistence activities. He is interested in the evolution of the human ecology and how to trace it in the past.
Collaborative Partners
Culture & Ontogeny
Research Initiative (CORI)
