Herman Pontzer
Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Global Health
Appointment:
Herman Pontzer
Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Global Health
How did the human body evolve, and how does our species’ deep past shape our health and physiology today? Through lab and field research, Dr. Pontzer investigates the physiology of humans and other primates to understand how ecology, lifestyle, diet, and evolutionary history affect metabolism and health. He is particularly interested in cardiometabolic disease and the lifestyle factors that protect against obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other noncommunicable diseases that are common among industrialized populations but rare or absent in non-industrialized societies.
Dr. Pontzer’s field projects seek to understand how diet, activity and other ecological factors influence the physiology and health of people in small-scale societies, including hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers in east Africa and South America. Back at Duke, his lab research focuses on energetics and metabolism, including respirometry and doubly labeled water methods.
Publications
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Eyre J, Williams SA, Grabowski M, Winters S, Pontzer H. The effect of bi-iliac breadth on core body temperature. Journal of human evolution. 2024 Oct;195:103580.Wood BM, Raichlen DA, Pontzer H, Harris JA, Sayre MK, Paolo B, et al. Beyond the here and now: hunter-gatherer socio-spatial complexity and the evolution of language. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological sciences. 2024 Oct;379(1912):20220521.Rimbach R, Petritz OA, Balko JA, Pontzer H. Urban eastern gray squirrels (sciurus carolinensis) show little seasonal variation in biochemical and hematological parameters. Urban Ecosystems. 2024 Oct 1;27(5):2005–20.Rosinger AY, Stoler J, Ford LB, McGrosky A, Sadhir S, Ulrich M, et al. Mobility ideation due to water problems during historic 2022 drought associated with livestock wealth, water and food insecurity, and fingernail cortisol concentration in northern Kenya. Social science & medicine (1982). 2024 Aug;359:117280.
See more publications at Scholars@Duke