George (PJ) Perry

Professional Bio

Research Interests and Activities:

Projects in the Perry laboratory are broadly motivated by hypotheses about human evolutionary ecology -- how we have adapted to our variable or changing environments -- and how human behavior has affected the evolutionary biology of other species that share our ecosystems. Among our major current project areas, one is focused on the evolutionary ecology of human rainforest hunter-gatherers, including the identification and characterization of convergent adaptation among genetically distinct African and Southeast Asian populations. Another research area considers the evolutionary biology of various human parasites, including tapeworms and lice, as proxies from which to make inferences about our own evolution. Finally, we are studying the history of human-environment interactions on Madagascar and the evolutionary ecologies of lemurs on the island, including on how this diverse group of primates (including extinct species - the “subfossil” lemurs) has been affected by, and possibly adapted to, anthropogenic habitat disturbances and hunting pressures.

Please visit our Laboratory Website for more information and to see profiles on each member of the lab!

Fieldwork:

Madagascar (extant and extinct lemurs, and people), Uganda (Batwa rainforest hunter-gatherers), and Peru (tapeworm functional genomics)