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Kevin Lala

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Kevin Lala (formerly Laland)
Born
Kevin Neville Lala

(1962-10-05) 5 October 1962 (age 62)
NationalityEnglish
EducationUniversity College London (Ph.D., 1990)
AwardsRoyal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award
Scientific career
FieldsBehavioral biology
Evolutionary biology
InstitutionsUniversity of St Andrews
Thesis Social transmission in Norway rats and its implications for evolutionary theory  (1990)

Kevin Neville Lala (formerly Kevin Neville Laland; born 5 October 1962)[1][2] is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College London,[3] he was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the University of St Andrews in 2002. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory[4] and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis.[5] He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Biology. He has also received a European Research Council Advanced Grant,[6] a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award,[7] and a John Templeton Foundation grant.[8] He was the president of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association from 2007 to 2010[9] and a former president of the Cultural Evolution Society.[10]

Cognition and learning

Lala's lab is primarily focused on animal social learning, innovation, and intelligence[11], as well as human evolution, particularly the evolution of cognition and culture[12]. Their work is highly interdisciplinary, lying on the interface of evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, ecology and psychology, and combines a wide variety of empirical and theoretical approaches[13].

Niche construction theory

Following John Odling-Smee (1988)'s attempt to formalize the process of niche construction as an evolutionary process[14], Odling-Smee, Lala, and Marcus W. Feldman developed a theoretical framework-- Niche Construction Theory (NCT)-- that models niche construction as an evolutionary process reciprocally interacting with the process of natural selection[4][15]. NCT has been applied widely across multiple fields, including ecology[16][17], evolutionary developmental biology[18], and human and cultural evolution[19][20][21].

Extended evolutionary synthesis

In the mid-2010s, Kevin Lala, Tobias Uller, and colleagues pushed for an extended evolutionary synthesis in a series of high-impact articles.[22][23] From 2015 to 2018, Uller and Lala led a large international John Templeton Foundation grant to test key hypotheses and assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis.[8][24]

Anti-racism work

Kevin Lala previously served on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion division of the School of Biology as deputy director.[25] He is currently serving as an Anti-Racism advocate,[26] publishing articles[27][28] on racism in academia.

Publications

Journal articles

Books

  • Evolutionary Causation: Biological and Philosophical Reflections, The MIT Press, 2019, Tobias Uller, Kevin N Laland ISBN 9780262039925
  • Darwin's Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind, Princeton University Press, 2017 ISBN 9780691151182
  • Social Learning: An Introduction to Mechanisms, Methods, and Models, Princeton University Press, 2013, William Hoppitt and Kevin N. Laland ISBN 9780691150703
  • Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, Oxford University Press, 2011, Kevin N. Laland and Gillian R. Brown, 2nd edition ISBN 9780199586967
  • Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution, Princeton University Press, 2003, John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, Marcus W. Feldman ISBN 9780691044378
  • Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, Oxford University Press, 2002, Kevin N. Laland and Gillian R. Brown, 1st edition ISBN 9780198508847

References

  1. ^ "Laland, Kevin N." Library of Congress Name Authority File. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  2. ^ "Current lab members – The Lala Lab". lalandlab.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  3. ^ Odling-Smee, J.; Laland, K. N.; Feldman, M. W. (February 2000). "Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 23 (1): 131–146, discussion 146–175. doi:10.1017/s0140525x00002417. ISSN 0140-525X. PMID 11303338. S2CID 13893525.
  4. ^ a b Laland, K. N.; Odling-Smee, J.; Feldman, M. W. (2003). Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton University Press. p. 488. ISBN 9780691044378.
  5. ^ Zimmer, Carl (22 November 2016). "Scientists Seek to Update Evolution". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  6. ^ "ERC Funded Projects". European Research Council. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  7. ^ "Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship". University of St. Andrews. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  8. ^ a b "Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test". John Templeton Foundation. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  9. ^ "archived:www.cambridge.org/core/membership/ehbea/about-us". cambridge.org. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  10. ^ "About Us". culturalevolutionsociety.org. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  11. ^ Toyokawa, Wataru; Whalen, Andrew; Laland, Kevin N. (21 January 2019). "Social learning strategies regulate the wisdom and madness of interactive crowds". Nature Human Behaviour. 3 (2): 183–193. doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0518-x. ISSN 2397-3374.
  12. ^ Laland, Kevin; Seed, Amanda (4 January 2021). "Understanding Human Cognitive Uniqueness". Annual Review of Psychology. 72 (1): 689–716. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-062220-051256. ISSN 0066-4308.
  13. ^ "The Lala Lab – Research in the School of Biology". lalandlab.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  14. ^ Odling-Smee FJ (1988) Niche-constructing phenotypes. In: Plotkin HC (ed) The Role of Behavior in Evolution. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 73–132
  15. ^ Odling-Smee, F. John; Laland, Kevin N.; Feldman, Marcus W. (1996). "Niche Construction". The American Naturalist. 147 (4): 641–648. ISSN 0003-0147.
  16. ^ Laland, K. N.; Odling-Smee, F. J.; Feldman, M. W. (31 August 1999). "Evolutionary consequences of niche construction and their implications for ecology". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 96 (18): 10242–10247. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.18.10242. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 17873. PMID 10468593.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
  17. ^ Matthews, Blake; De Meester, Luc; Jones, Clive G.; Ibelings, Bas W.; Bouma, Tjeerd J.; Nuutinen, Visa; de Koppel, Johan van; Odling-Smee, John (May 2014). "Under niche construction: an operational bridge between ecology, evolution, and ecosystem science". Ecological Monographs. 84 (2): 245–263. doi:10.1890/13-0953.1. ISSN 0012-9615.
  18. ^ Laland, Kevin N.; Odling-Smee, John; Gilbert, Scott F. (15 November 2008). "EvoDevo and niche construction: building bridges". Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution. 310B (7): 549–566. doi:10.1002/jez.b.21232.
  19. ^ Kendal, Jeremy; Tehrani, Jamshid J.; Odling-Smee, John (27 March 2011). "Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 366 (1566): 785–792. doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0306. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 3048995. PMID 21320894.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
  20. ^ Laland, Kevin N.; Odling-Smee, John; Myles, Sean (February 2010). "How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together". Nature Reviews Genetics. 11 (2): 137–148. doi:10.1038/nrg2734. ISSN 1471-0056.
  21. ^ Laland, Kevin N.; Odling-Smee, John; Feldman, Marcus W. (February 2000). "Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 23 (1): 131–146. doi:10.1017/s0140525x00002417. ISSN 0140-525X.
  22. ^ Laland, Kevin; Uller, Tobias; Feldman, Marc; Sterelny, Kim; Müller, Gerd B.; Moczek, Armin; Jablonka, Eva; Odling-Smee, John; Wray, Gregory A.; Hoekstra, Hopi E.; Futuyma, Douglas J.; Lenski, Richard E.; Mackay, Trudy F. C.; Schluter, Dolph; Strassmann, Joan E. (October 2014). "Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?". Nature. 514 (7521): 161–164. Bibcode:2014Natur.514..161L. doi:10.1038/514161a. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 25297418. S2CID 4467421.
  23. ^ Laland, Kevin N.; Uller, Tobias; Feldman, Marcus W.; Sterelny, Kim; Müller, Gerd B.; Moczek, Armin; Jablonka, Eva; Odling-Smee, John (22 August 2015). "The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 282 (1813): 20151019. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1019. PMC 4632619. PMID 26246559.
  24. ^ "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis – An integrative research program". Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  25. ^ "Committee – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion". biology.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  26. ^ "Anti-racism – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion". biology.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  27. ^ Laland, Kevin N. (25 August 2020). "Racism in academia, and why the 'little things' matter". Nature. 584 (7822): 653–654. Bibcode:2020Natur.584..653L. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-02471-6. PMID 32843730. S2CID 221285014.
  28. ^ "ReSourcE Spring 2021". Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 27 January 2023.


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