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IU Bloomington

Michael Wasserman

Department of Anthropology and Department of Human Biology

Expert Bio

Michael Wasserman is an assistant professor at IU developing the Primate Environmental Endocrinology Lab. He is examining ecological and evolutionary relationships between wild primates and their estrogenic plant foods, with relevance to understanding the roles of endocrine disruptors in primate conservation, human evolution, and modern human health and diet.

His Primate Environmental Endocrinology Lab explores how global environmental change through climate disruption, endocrine disruption and biodiversity loss affect non-human primates across the tropics. Specifically, his lab examines the prevalence of steroidal chemicals in the wild plant foods of primates and how these chemicals, along with a number of other ecological and anthropogenic factors, influence endocrine systems, behaviors and populations of various primate species.

Previously, he was an assistant professor of environmental science at St. Edward’s University and Tomlinson postdoctoral research fellow in anthropology at McGill. He received his Ph.D. in environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley, and undergraduate degrees in anthropology and zoology from the University of Florida.

Areas of Expertise

Primate ecology and evolution, environmental endocrinology, nutritional anthropology, evolutionary medicine, conservation biology, reproductive ecology.

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