HEALTH AND BIOBEHAVIOR LABORATORY
exploring stress, resilience, & bio-behavioral adaptation to novel, harsh, and unpredictable environments
Ongoing Projects
Expedition Acclimatization
How do humans biobehaviorally acclimatize to short-duration energetically demanding expeditions?
We are interested in studying humans who live, work, or travel in extreme environments, from damp subterranean caves to frigid mountain tops to the searing heat of the desert. Studying stress responses at extremes help untangle how some people seem to thrive in high-stress environments.
Philadelphia Heat*Stress
What are the health, biological, and behavioral impacts of an ever-increasing heat stress on Philadelphians in a warming world?
Our goal is to better understand the intersection of heat stress and psychological stress in the Philadelphia population to inform stress mitigation tactics, in a city where people share geography, but experience vastly different social structures, resource access, and health vulnerability.
Homo naledi Energetics
What is the psychobiological response of navigating a cave and what can it tell us about our human ancestors?
We examine how energetically costly it is for contemporary humans to navigate the Rising Star Cave System to estimate the potential energetic costs to Homo naledi individuals depositing the remains.