Robert Quinlan

Biography

Education

PhD, University of Missouri, Columbia

Interests and Current Research

My main interests are in human behavioral, evolutionary and cultural ecology; medical anthropology; demography; ethnobiology; collaborative ethnographic science; cross-cultural comparison; Africa; Caribbean; field and analytical methods. I received my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and I was a NIH post-doctoral fellow in Human Biology at the University of Hawai’i.

My research focuses on the role of environmental influences in shaping human reproduction, livelihood, and family relations in small-scale production systems and historical populations. I am also involved in collaborative research concerning points of contact between traditional medicine and biomedicine in low-income countries.

I regularly teach Human Issues in International Development; Cultural Ecology; and graduate seminars bridging sociocultural anthropology and evolutionary ecology.

Courses

• ANTH 309 Cultural Ecology
• ANTH 418 Human Issues in International Development
• ANTH 463 Introduction to Anthropological Demography & Epidemiology
• ANTH 564 Advances in Evolution & Human Behavior
• ANTH 504 Culture, Ecology & International Development

Representative Publications

• Caudell, M., Quinlan, M., Subbiah, M. Call, D., Roulette, C., Roulette, JW, Roth, A., Matthews, L., and Quinlan, RJ. 2017. Antimicrobial use and veterinary care among agro-pastoralists in northern Tanzania. PloS One 12(1): e0170328. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170328.
• Meehan, C. Quinlan, R. Malcom, C. 2012. Cooperative Breeding and Maternal Energy Expenditure among Aka Foragers. American Journal of Human Biology. 25(1):42-57. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.22336
• Quinlan, R. & Quinlan, M. 2007. Evolutionary Ecology of Human Pair-Bonds: Cross-Cultural Tests of Alternative Hypotheses. Cross-Cultural Research 41(2):149-69. doi: 10.1177/1069397106298893
• Quinlan, R. 2007. Human Parental Effort & Environmental Risk. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science. 274(1606):121-125. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3690
• Quinlan, R. 2006. Gender & Risk in a Matrifocal Caribbean Community: A View from Behavioral Ecology. American Anthropologist, 108(3): 464–479. doi: 10.1525/aa.2006.108.3.464

Current Students

• Evan Leacox
• Ollie Shannon
• RC Timilsina
• Ellie Zanetti