This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Welcome to the tenth installment of You Should Know, where I give my own #ScholarSunday salute to Science Bloggers and Blogs you may not yet know about.
Introducing … Dr. Robin G. Nelson
Dr. Nelson is a Biological Anthropologist whose research explores family dynamics and how they may impact the health of individuals and communities. She researches the social contexts of human health in the Caribbean. Some of her current research includes a project that investigates parental investment, residential contexts, and child growth and development using an evolutionary perspective.
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Robin G. Nelson, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. She also has an Honors BA in Anthropology from Brown University and she earned her MA and PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Michigan.
In her own words
I am particularly interested in the ways that communities of color in post-colonial contexts negotiate investment in family and friends, and we can examine these interactions as part of a larger adaptive system of varied and flexible human behavior.
You can learn more about her engaging work
All over the news it seems. Her most recent research project with Drs. Kathryn B. H. Clancy, Julienne N. Rutherford, and Katie Hinde was a survey the incidences of sexual harassment of female trainees who conduct field research. The ground-breaking study, Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault published, in PLOS One is publicly available. The study is first to catalog the experiences of scientists who do field research and found that 64% of the respondents reported being sexual harassed. A majority of the harassed (which includes incidences of assault, too) were female trainees. This work highlights the work that is still needed to keep women safe at work, and particularly young women and scholars who might turn away from exciting careers in field science because of harassment of assault.
This research has been reported by a number of news services: USA Today, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, NPR, PBS News Hour, Physics Today, Scientific American and Tech Times.
You can also learn more about her research at her Skidmore College, Department of Anthropology Faculty page.
You can engage Dr. Nelson at the following social media services:
Twitter: @rgairnelson
She often tweets about recent anthropological research on a range of topics including primate social behavior, insights into human evolution via the fossil record, and anything related to human health and sociality.
Connect and follow her on Twitter. Tell her you're following her via The Urban Scientist (me, @DNLee5) and #ScholarSunday.