Faculty in the Ecology, Environment, and Evolution concentration in the Department of Anthropology maintain research and teaching expertise in the intersecting issues of population and human-environment interactions. Research specialties include formal demography and biodemography and life history theory (Jones, R. Bird), the political ecology of population growth in tropical forests (Curran, Durham), and the effects of anthropogenic fire on populations of endangered species in the Western Desert of Australia (R. Bird). Our faculty have particular strengths in the interaction between human populations and the implications for biodiversity preservation and resource conservation.

Jones is the co-Principal Investigator on a long-running NICHD-supported demographic training grant based at Stanford. This grant has provided training for dozens of anthropology Ph.D. students from Stanford and many other research universities and regularly brings anthropological demographers to campus on a regular basis. This project links Stanford’s Anthropology department with other departments within the university, especially Sociology, Biological Sciences, and Medicine, and a network of US-based and international population centers. Jones is also on the executive committee of the new Stanford Center for Population Research (SCPR), where various Anthropology faculty (Curran, R. Bird, Durham) maintain affiliations with SCPR.

Students working in this area have investigated the impact of violent death on marriage markets in Colombia, the demography of hunter-gatherers, the impact of transmigration projects on the health and well-being of forest people, and the political economy of REDD projects. Student research in the area of population and environment is regularly supported by grants from the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies at Stanford.