Evolutionary Approaches to Human Health with Dr. Amy Boddy

Welcome to the podcast Associate Professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, Dr. Amy Boddy. Dr. Boddy specializes in evolutionary approaches to human health and researches topics like comparative oncology, maternal fetal transfer and conflict, and much more. Dr. Boddy discusses her academic journey as a first generation student, starting with community college in Michigan and then onto Wayne State where she received her BA and PhD. Dr. Boddy has always been drawn to human health, biology and evolution, but it wasn't until her senior year of college she discovered how she could use an anthropological lens to study the questions she wanted to. We then move into her experience as a post-doc and moving internationally with a young child. 

Prior to her appointment at UCSB, she worked at the Comparative Oncology Center at Arizona State University where she was a professor. While she still works with this team today, in 2017 she accepted a professor position at UCSB. Currently she teaches classes like Evolutionary Medicine, Human Reproductive Ecology, Genetics, and runs a great lab on campus. We talk the transition from ASU to UCSB, quarter versus semester system from student and professorial point of view, as well as her takeaways from online learning. 

Currently, she and a team are investigating microchimerism, or the transfer of cells between mother and baby during pregnancy. She has obtained blood samples from a hospital in Santa Barbara to further research these fascinating cells and their role in immune response. 

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnNIBc4AAAAJ&hl=en

Twitter: @amy_boddy

http://www.boddylab.ca/

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Brought to you in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association check out their podcast library here https://www.americananthro.org/StayInformed/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1629