Recently, my fieldwork has focused on the Indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia, known collectively as the Orang Asli. Traditionally, the Orang Asli live in remote rainforest camps and villages and subsist on some combination of hunting, fishing, wild food collection, and swidden horticulture. Today, however, few Orang Asli remain isolated from outside economic and cultural influences due to rapid expansion of industries, the market economy, and urban areas across Malaysia over the last half-century. As a result, Orang Asli lifestyles are changing, including patterns of physical activity. My research aims to better understand how and why lifestyle changes are occurring among the Orang Asli and how such changes are affecting their health and risk of disease.

What drives my research, what energizes me, is a profound wonder for humanity: the saga of our evolutionary history and the lessons it holds, the exquisite diversity of people and cultures, the undeniable similarity of us all, the joy and pain of being a person. But in pursuing my work I've discovered another strong motivating force: I want my research to help people. As a result, I'm particularly drawn to topics that lie at the interface between evolutionary anthropology and medicine, especially those related to degenerative diseases that appear to stem from deleterious interactions between our evolutionary heritage and modern environments. Thus, while I approach anthropology with curiosity and awe similar to a natural historian, I'm also compelled by the potential practical value of my research to modern human life.

Some images / videos courtesy of Eric T. Carlson and Aaron Anderson with Tu Dance for Bon Iver, Drew Christopherson, Kirk Endicott, Tim Fitch, Nick Gulig, Mike Gurven, Tom Kraft, David Ramos, Simon Wallace, and Vivek Venkataraman. Some other videos are from the Library of Congress, Videvo, and Internet Archive.