I am a biological anthropologist with a broad background in human biological variation with training in evolutionary theory, evolutionary medicine, ecological immunology, and human adaptability. I am interested in uncovering the reasons why some public health problems, such as anemia, are so pervasive despite decades of intervention efforts. I tend to draw on evolutionary and social theories to study these problems situated in ecological and cultural settings. I have investigated how women and children cope with nutritional and disease stress in harsh conditions of northern Kenya. I have also investigated how human milk nutrient and immune content change (or not) when mothers are subjected to nutritional and disease stress, again in northern Kenya. Together with my team, I am currently preparing for a new study to characterize how the immune system of milk responds to bacterial stimuli, and how this may differ between mother-infant dyads.

- Implications of selling livestock during drought for mother-infant infection risks among Kenyan agropastoralists (with Bilinda Straight, Western Michigan U)

- Exploring the extent dietary diversity protects against folate deficiency among breastfeeding mothers amid drought and food shortage (with Ananyaa Asthana)

- Exploring Human Milk Immune Specificity in Michigan Mothers (with MSU students Aditi Sharma, Alli Harkenrider, and Ananyaa Asthana and Katherine Wander, Binghamton U)