Matt Zimmerman

I am a PhD student in Ecology at UC Davis and a member of the a member of the UC Davis Cultural Evolution Laboratory. Our research draws heavily from the methods of behavioral economics, game theory, human behavioral ecology and population genetics.

I'm interested in understanding the emergence of human behavior and institutions through analytical and computational models of cultural evolution. The theoretical framework for these efforts is Dual Inheritance Theory, which models how human evolution has been shaped by the coevolutionary interaction between genetic evolution and cultural evolution. It has a rich 30-year tradition of analytical modeling to which I hope to apply more computational tools.

I am specifically interested in how transmission strategies and biases evolve in cultural systems and how humans behaviorally adapt to changing environmental conditions. I like to spend time playing around with evolutionary game theory.

I swim and run to keep fit. In moments of triathlete envy, I add cycling to the mix. My little sister and I are planning to do the Alcatraz Challenge in August, so I'll probably be looking for a workout partner in Beijing.

mrz1 at ucdavis edu