Christopher Kuzawa
· Professor of Human Evolutionary BiologyHarvard University · Human Evolutionary Biology
Active 1991–2026
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About
Dr. Christopher W. Kuzawa is a Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard University. He is a biological anthropologist with research interests in developmental biology, human evolution, and health. His group explores developmental influences on adult biology and health, the psychobiology of human fatherhood, non-genetic forms of biological inheritance, and the energetics and evolution of the human brain. Additionally, his work addresses the history and misuse of race concepts in anthropology and beyond. Dr. Kuzawa is committed to engaging with societal issues related to human biology, exemplified by his testimony to the State of California Task Force on reparations for African Americans and his 2023 Op Ed in the Los Angeles Times discussing health disparities and reparations. He holds a PhD in Anthropology and an MSPH in Epidemiology from Emory University. Currently, he is also a John D. MacArthur Professor of Anthropology and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, co-director of the Health Inequality Network of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group, and an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Research topics
- Political Science
- Biology
- Medicine
- Sociology
- Gender studies
- Epistemology
- Psychology
- Physiology
- Law
- Bioinformatics
Selected publications
Primate gut microbiota induce evolutionarily salient changes in mouse neurodevelopment
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026-01-05 · 1 citations
articleOpen accessMultiple primate species, including humans, evolved brains that are exceptionally large relative to their body sizes. These large brains coevolved with metabolic adaptations that enhance cerebral energy supply, including increased circulating glucose levels. While the gut microbiota (GM) is known to influence host metabolism, its potential role in primate brain evolution remains unclear. To investigate this, we inoculated germ-free mice with the GMs of primate species selected to separate the ef…
Scientific Reports · 2025-09-24 · 1 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorProxy measures of chronic inflammation derived from DNA methylation (DNAm) data have emerged as promising predictors of cardiometabolic disease in high income countries. The performance of these measures in lower and middle income settings experiencing higher levels of endemic infections as well as rising rates of chronic degenerative diseases is not known. A DNAm-based proxy for C-reactive protein (DNAm-CRP) was calculated from 1468 CpG sites on the Infinium MethylationEPIC v1.0 array applied t…
American Journal of Human Biology · 2025-08-01 · 1 citations
review1st authorCorrespondingIn 2009 we published an article in the American Journal of Human Biology arguing for a developmental contribution to US racial inequities in cardiovascular disease (CVD), inspired by emerging evidence that stress during pregnancy reduces birth weight (BW) while also elevating offspring CVD risk. The 15 years since our piece was published provide an opportunity to update the status of the hypothesis. Although relevant studies are sparse, work to date has revealed an apparent paradox: although Bla…
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth · 2025-10-10 · 1 citations
articleOpen accessMothers undergo physiological and molecular changes over the course of gestation. These modifications "get under the skin" and may be reflected in the maternal epigenome through processes such as DNA methylation. Such an epigenetic mark may offer insights into maternal responses to prenatal influences and biological cues from the developing fetus, thereby functioning as an indirect indicator of the conditions the fetus experiences in utero. We measured whole blood DNA methylation using the Methy…
medRxiv · 2026-03-31
articleOpen accessAbstract Background Diverse epigenetic clocks are known to capture health risks associated with increased adiposity, but their estimates have never been combined to represent a holistic estimate of biological age acceleration (BAA). There is also a gap in research using epigenetic clocks to study adiposity in lower-middle income Asian countries. Methods and Findings Data from 1,745 participants (21.7±0.3 years old, 45% female) of the Cebu (Philippines) Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey we…
Recent grants
Early Life Nutrition, Developmental Plasticity, and Reproductive Ecology in Filipino Males
NSF · $157k · 2006–2009
NSF · $31k · 2018–2021
NSF · $29k · 2019–2021
Frequent coauthors
- 130 shared
Thomas W. McDade
Northwestern University
- 79 shared
Linda S. Adair
University of North Carolina Health Care
- 74 shared
Judith B. Borja
Foundation University
- 46 shared
Andrew Wooyoung Kim
South African Medical Research Council
- 40 shared
Lee T. Gettler
University of Notre Dame
- 36 shared
Sang Lee
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
- 32 shared
Alan B. Feranil
Scalabrini International Migration Network
- 31 shared
Michael S. Kobor
University of British Columbia
Education
- 2001
Ph.D., Human Biology
University of California, Los Angeles
- 1998
M.S., Human Biology
University of California, Los Angeles
- 1996
B.A., Human Biology
University of California, San Diego
Awards & honors
- Elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences
- Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
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