Rate My Professor Christopher Kuzawa

Christopher Kuzawa is Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, a position he assumed in January 2025. He previously held the John D. MacArthur Professorship in Anthropology at Northwestern University from 2013, along with appointments as Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research and co-director of the Health Inequality Network of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group. Kuzawa earned his PhD in Anthropology and MSPH in Epidemiology from Emory University in 2002 and 2001, respectively, and a BA in Anthropology summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1993. As a biological anthropologist, his research examines developmental biology, human evolution, and health, focusing on developmental influences on adult biology, psychobiology of human fatherhood, non-genetic biological inheritance, energetics and evolution of the human brain, and the history and misuse of race concepts. Through long-term analysis of the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey in the Philippines, involving over 3,000 pregnant mothers since 1983 and their descendants, he has demonstrated how early environments affect growth, health, endocrinology, immunity, reproduction, telomere length, and epigenetic aging.

Key publications include co-authoring "Prenatal testosterone transfer from male twins reduces the fertility and socioeconomic success of their female co-twins" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019), "Reproduction predicts shorter telomeres and epigenetic age acceleration among young adult women" (Scientific Reports, 2018), and co-editing The Arc of Life: Evolution and Health over the Life Course (Harvard University Press, 2016). His studies on fatherhood reveal hormonal shifts supporting evolutionary roots of male caregiving, while brain energetics research explains childhood growth patterns via energy trade-offs. Kuzawa is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences (2018) and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, with earlier honors including the Edward E. Hunt Prize (2000) and Ales Hrdlicka Prize (1997). He serves as Associate Editor of the American Journal of Human Biology and contributes publicly, including testimony to the California Reparations Task Force and a 2023 Los Angeles Times op-ed on health disparities.