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International Year of Sanitation 2008

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Robert Aunger - MSc PhD Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Public Health
Bob Aunger Contact Details: Address:

383 North Courtyard, DCVBU, ITD,
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT

+44 (0) 207 927 2097

Background


I have a Master's degree in urban planning from the University of Southern California, and a PhD in biological anthropology from UCLA, with a thesis on the cultural evolution of food taboos in a population of horticulturalists and pygmy foragers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago in culture and mental health and at King's College Cambridge in evolutionary psychology before coming to LSHTM in 2003.



Teaching/Research


Teaching:

I teach seminars in the areas of health promotion and social science methods at LSHTM. I have previously taught biology, anthropology and psychology courses at UCLA, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Cambridge.

Research:

Current projects include:

• Defining a universal list of human needs
• Developing a synthetic model of behaviour change consistent with evolutionary psychology and neuroscience
• Producing a formative research kit for determining the causes of behaviour
Understanding how everyday health-related behaviour can become habits or routines (e.g., toothbrushing

Recent projects included:

Identifying the natural kinds of human behaviour
Rigorously identifying periods in macro-scale history from the Big Bang to contemporary times
• Providing an account of how technology evolved from simple forms in other animal species into human techno-systems
Understanding the mechanisms underlying the cultural transmission of information (e.g., memes)

Research areas:

Health promotion, Behaviour change, Public health, Hygiene, Cultural evolution, Organisational research, Social science research methods, ‘Big’ history, Evolution of technology.



Publications



*Warning* Copyright Notice: The publishers hold the copyright to these articles. PDFs are provided here to enable the rapid dissemination of scholarly work. It is understood that you will use them only in a manner consistent with the fair use provisions of the relevant copyright law. You may not distribute them or use them for any commercial enterprise.*Warning*

BOOKS:


Reflexive Ethnographic Science. AltaMira Press.
Aunger, Robert (2003).

The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think. Free Press (Simon and Schuster). [Spanish translation (Paidos) in 2004; Chinese translation forthcoming from CITIC Publishing]
Aunger, Robert (2002).

Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science. Oxford University Press [Japanese translation (Sangyo Tosho) in 2004]
Aunger, Robert, ed. (2001).

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES:


‘Why wash hands with soap? Findings from formative research in 11 countries’.
Curtis, Valerie, Lisa Danquah and Robert Aunger (submitted)

‘Consolidating behaviour change theory.’
Aunger, Robert and Valerie Curtis (submitted).

“The evolution of behavioural control.”
Aunger, Robert, and Valerie Curtis (submitted).

‘The changing nature of human technology.’ Cambridge Journal of Economics.
Aunger, Robert (in press)

Kinds of behaviour.” Biology and Philosophy.
Aunger, Robert, and Valerie Curtis (2008).

Tooth-brushing as routine behaviour.’ International Dental Journal 57 (5): 364-376.
Aunger, Robert (2007).

Major transitions in ‘big’ history”. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74(8):1137-1163.
Aunger, Robert (2007)

A rigorous periodization of ‘big’ history”. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74(8):1164-1178.
Aunger, Robert (2007).

Marketing hygiene behaviours: Which communications channels are most likely to change hygiene behaviours at scale: Results of a mid-term evaluation of a national handwashing campaign in Ghana.” Health Education Research.
Scott, Beth, Wolf-Peter Schmidt, Robert Aunger, Nana Garbrah-Aidoo, and R. Animashaun (2007).

Serotonin: A link between disgust and immunity?” Medical Hypotheses 68(1): 61-66.
Rubio-Godoy, Miguel, Robert Aunger and Valerie Curtis (2007).

Y-STR haplotypes from eight south Indian groups based on five loci.” Journal of Forensic Sciences 49(4): 847-8.
Cordaux, Richard, Gillian Bentley, Robert Aunger, S.M. Sirajuddin and Mark Stoneking (2004).

Independent origins of Indian caste and tribal paternal lineages.” Current Biology 14:231-5.
Cordaux, Richard, Robert Aunger, Gillian Bentley, Ivane Nasidze, Nilmani Saha, S.M. Sirajuddin and Mark Stoneking (2004).

Quantitative evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Suppl.): Biology Letters 4:S131-S133.
Curtis, Valerie, Robert Aunger and Tamer Rabie (2004).

Mitochondrial DNA variation in tribal populations of India.” European Journal of Human Genetics.
Cordaux, Richard, Nilmani Saha, Gillian R. Bentley, Robert Aunger, S. M. Sirajuddin and Mark Stoneking (2003).

Three roads to cultural recurrence. Unpub. MS.
Aunger, Robert (2003)

Comparative cultural phylogenetics and the transmission of belief in an oral society. Unpub. MS.
Aunger, Robert (2002)

Exposure versus susceptibility in the epidemiology of ‘everyday’ beliefs.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 2 (2):113-154.
Aunger, Robert (2002)

“The life history of culture learning in a face-to-face society.” Ethos 28(2):1-38.
Aunger, Robert (2000).

“The 9-bp deletion between the mitochondrial lysine tRNA and COII genes in tribal populations of India.” Human Biology 72 (2):273-285.
Clark, Vanessa J., Shanthi Sivendren, Nilmani Saha, Gillian R. Bentley, Robert Aunger, S.M. Sirajuddin, and Mark Stoneking (2000).

“Women’s strategies to alleviate nutritional stress in a rural African society,” Social Science and Medicine 48:149-62.
Bentley, Gillian R., Robert Aunger, Alisa M. Harrigan, Mark Jenike, Robert C. Bailey and Peter T. Ellison (1999).

“Against Idealism/Contra consensus [Theory in Anthropology Forum on “Culture as Consensus”]” Current Anthropology 40:S93-S101.
Aunger, Robert (1999).

“Acculturation and the persistence of indigenous food avoidances in northeastern Zaire,” Human Organization 55(2):206-218.
Aunger, Robert (1996).

“On ethnography: Story-telling or science? [with commentaries]” Current Anthropology 36:97-130.
Aunger, Robert (1995).

“Sources of variation in ethnographic interview data: Food avoidances in the Ituri Forest, Zaire,” Ethnology 33:65-99.
Aunger, Robert (1994).

“Are food avoidances maladaptive in the Ituri Forest of Zaire?” Journal of Anthropological Research 50:277-310.
Aunger, Robert (1994).

“The nutritional consequences of rejecting food in the Ituri Forest of Zaire,” Human Ecology 20:263-291.
Aunger, Robert (1992).

“Humans as primates: The social relationships of Efe Pygmy men in comparative perspective,” International Journal of Primatology 11:127-146.
Bailey, Robert C., and Robert Aunger (1990).

“Net hunters vs. archers: variation in women's subsistence strategies in the Ituri Forest,” Human Ecology 17:273-297.
Bailey, Robert C., and Robert Aunger (1989).

“Significance of the social relationships of Efe pygmy men in the Ituri Forest, Zaire,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 78:495-507.
Bailey, Robert C., and Robert Aunger (1989).

BOOK CHAPTERS:

Human communication as niche construction,” in Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution, ed. by Stephen Shennan. University of California Press.
Aunger, Robert (in press).

Practical aspects of evolutionary medicine’, in Sarah Elton and Paul O’Higgins, eds. Medicine and Evolution: Current Applications, Future Prospects, SSHB series volume 47.
Bentley, Gillian and Robert Aunger (in press)

Memes,” in Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychology, ed. by Leslie Barrett and Robin Dunbar. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Aunger, Robert (2007).

What’s the matter with memes?” in Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think, ed. by Alan Grafen and Mark Ridley. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aunger, Robert (2006).

An agnostic on memes,” in Social Information Transmission and Human Biology, ed. by Jonathan Wells, Simon Strickland and Kevin Laland. London: Taylor and Francis, pp. 89-97.
Aunger, Robert (2006).

“Memes,” in The Social Science Encyclopedia (3rd ed), ed. by Adam Kuper and Jessica Kuper. London: Routledge.
Aunger, Robert (2004).

“Cultural transmission and diffusion,” in Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, ed. by Lynn Nadel. London: MacMillan.
Aunger, Robert (2003).

Introduction” in Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science, ed. by Robert Aunger, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-23.
Aunger, Robert (2001).

Conclusion” in Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science, ed. by Robert Aunger, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 205-32.
Aunger, Robert (2001)

“Qualitative methodology,” in The Dictionary of Cultural Anthropology, ed. by Thomas Barfield, London: Basil Blackwell, pp. 386-7.
Aunger, Robert, and Malcolm Dow (1997).

“Sexuality, infertility, and sexually transmitted disease among farmers and foragers in Central Africa,” in Sexual Nature/Sexual Culture, ed.University of Chicago Press, pp. 195-222.
Paul R. Bailey, Robert C., and Robert Aunger (1995). Abramson and Steven D. Pinkerton,

Articles in popular journals or magazines :

Culture vultures” The Sciences 39 (5):36-42
Aunger, Robert (1999).

The end of the nation-state” The Edge, vol. 62
Aunger, Robert (2000).

Is the Central Dogma of biology inviolate?” The Edge, vol. 80
Aunger, Robert (2001).

What now? [reflections on the terrorist attacks in the US]” The Edge
Aunger, Robert (2001).

Is technology going to ‘wake up’ or ‘come alive’ anytime in the future?” The Edge
Aunger, Robert (2002).

Anthropologist as science advisor to the US President.” The Edge
Aunger, Robert (2003).

Aunger’s Laws” The Edge
Aunger, Robert (2004).

Should you require a copy of a paper that is not available here please use the contact form above or click HERE. Please mark the message for the attention of Robert Aunger.



Hygiene Centre, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT
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