Lab

Current Graduate Students
Current Undergraduate Students
Affiliated Faculty
SUNY New Paltz EP Lab Collaborators
Past Students/Alumni

Current Graduate Students

	Rachael Carmen Website Email Rachael joined the lab in Fall 2009, after graduating from SUNY New Paltz in the Spring of 2009 with her BA in Psychology (minoring in Evolutionary Studies and History). Her research interests lie in human sexuality in general, and the female sexual response in particular. By combining ideas from various disciplines in psychology (including Evolutionary Psychology), she hopes to get at age-old questions regarding the female orgasm.
	Morgan Gleason Email Morgan joined the EvoS lab in the Fall of 2012. She graduated from Johnson & Wales University in 2008, with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. After working 5 years as a business professional, she enrolled in the Master’s program at SUNY New Paltz to pursue her true passion, Psychology. Morgan was immediately drawn to the enthusiasm of the EvoS lab on campus. She is interested in courtship, and how Evolution manifests itself through artistic expression.
	Amanda Guitar Website Email Mandy joined the lab in Fall 2010 after graduating from New Mexico State University ’10 with a BA in Psychology and a Minor in Theatre Arts. Her research interests lie in a combination of Evolutionary and Health Psychology, with a particular focus on anxiety in mating.
	Rebecca Newmark Website Email Rebecca joined the lab in Fall 2011 after graduating from Binghamton University in 2009. Her research interests lie in evolutionary psychology, with a particular focus on mate selection and oxytocin.
	Melvin Philip Email Melvin studied Biology and Psychology as an undergraduate at SUNY Albany, where he worked in Dr. Gordon G. Gallup, Jr.’s Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. He joined the Geher Lab in the Fall of 2011. His research focuses on the study of mating from an evolutionary perspective, with a particular emphasis on the cues that individuals examine to evaluate potential mates as well as the strategies that individuals use to improve their appeal to potential mates.
	Briana R. Tauber Email Briana joined the lab in Fall 2012, after graduating SUNY New Paltz in the Spring of 2012 with a BA in Psychology (minoring in Evolutionary Studies). Her interests lie in sexual selection and mating intelligence.  Briana is presently the assistant to the Evolutionary Studies program.
	Grant Trouton Email Grant joined the lab in Fall 2011, after graduating from The College of William and Mary in the Spring of 2011 with his BS in Biology and Psychology and a mathematics minor. His research interests span current topics evolutionary psychology.

Current Undergraduate Students

Raina Hafftka Email Raina joined the lab this spring as an undergraduate assistant. She is currently a senior majoring in Psychology with a minor in Disaster Studies. Her research interests include evolutionary psychology, clinical psychology, and the psychology of women.

Affiliated New Paltz Faculty

Alice Andrews Website Email Alice has been teaching psychology with an evolutionary lens since 2002. Her interests are many and include: Cardiac psychology, literary Darwinism, evolutionary feminism, neuroethology, brain laterality, human mating, epigenetics, neuropsychoanalysis, social neuroscience, and evolutionary psychiatry. She’s the founder and co-editor of The Evolutionary Review: Art, Science, Culture and the founder and editor of Entelechy: Mind & Culture. Both journals bridge the arts and humanities with science, particularly evolutionary theory. She also serves on the SUNY/New Paltz Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Executive Committee; the Editorial Board of The Journal of Social, Evolutionary, & Cultural Psychology; the Editorial Board of EvoS Journal; and is Council Member-at-large for the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society. Along with several others, Alice is currently working on the development of a sister-society to NEEPS and FEPS (Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society) called “Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society.”

Rosemarie Sokol Chang, Ph.D. Website Email Rosemarie Sokol Chang is a social psychologist with research interest in the vocal expression of emotion in attachment relationships. These vocalizations include whines and loverese, the babytalk used between romantic partners. She is also the editor of EvoS Journal: The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium. Though currently working part-time to raise her toddler, she is still involved in research in conjunction with Justin Garcia through Binghamton University, and teaching online courses at the State University of New York, New Paltz and Southern New Hampshire University.

Collaborators from Near and Far

	Maryanne Fisher, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology, St. Mary’s University Website EmailMaryanne’s primary interest is in the evolutionary foundations of human interpersonal relationships. She has a long standing interest in female intrasexual competition. Her other areas of interest broadly include women’s mating strategies and indicators of female physical attractiveness.
	Andrew C. Gallup, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University Website EmailAndrew’s diverse laboratory and field experience has prompted a wide range of research interests pertaining to evolutionary biology and comparative psychology. His current research is exploring the spread of gaze-following in human crowds, the function(s) of yawning across vertebrates, the biological correlates of adolescent peer aggression, and sexual conflict and multilevel selection in water striders.
	Justin R. Garcia, M.S., Ph.D. Research Fellow, The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University Website EmailJustin’s primary interests are in the evolutionary and biological foundations of human love, intimacy, and sexual behavior.  In particular, notions of commitment and attachment in romantic and sexual relationships.  A second but overlapping area is in behavioral neurogenetics and behavioral endocrinology.  He is also interested in the application of evolutionary theory as a unifying framework for interdisciplinary studies.
	Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, NYU Website EmailScott researches and writes about the development of talent, intelligence, and creativity. He applies a variety of perspectives- from educational psychology to evolutionary psychology to philosophy-to come to a richer understanding and appreciation of all kinds of minds. With Glenn Geher, Scott has been exploring how intelligence and creativity plays out in the mating domain.
	Geoffrey Miller, Ph.D. Evolutionary Psychologist at the University of New Mexico Website Email He is best know for his books The Mating Mind (2001) and Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (2009).  His 98 journal papers and book chapters have addressed the adaptive functions of human mate choice, ovulatory cycle effects, female orgasm, status-seeking,conspicuous consumption, language, art, music, humor, creativity, and emotions, and the evolutionary genetics of intelligence, personality traits, and mental disorders. He received a B.A. in Biology and Psychology from Columbia University, New York, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Scientist, and The Economist, on NPR and BBC radio, and in documentaries on CNN, PBS, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and BBC. He has consulted for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, governments, NGOs, advertising agencies, market research companies, and social media companies. He has given about 120 invited talks around the world; in 2013 he will be a visiting professor at New York University Stern School of Business.
	Daniel J. Kruger, PhD. Research Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health and Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan Website EmailDan’s evolutionary research interests include: altruism, cooperation, competition, demography, life history, literary Darwinism, mortality patterns, risk taking, and interventions for social and ecological sustainability.
	Daniel Tumminelli O’Brien, Ph.D. EmailDaniel is the Manager of the Harvard-Boston Research Initiative at Harvard University, a Visiting Assistant Professor at Binghamton University, and an Adjunct Lecturer at University of Massachusetts Boston. His main research interest is the application of evolutionary theory to understanding and improving urban environments. He has been a key player in the development of the Binghamton Neighborhood Project, an applied, interdisciplinary research collaboration between researchers, service providers and local government in Binghamton, NY, and is working with sociologists Christopher Winship and Robert Sampson to begin a similar project in Boston, MA. He is an active member of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium, developing a variety of educational materials and pedagogical techniques that bring evolutionary theory to classrooms outside the biological sciences, including an introductory course titled “Evolution for Everyone” that he constructed with David Sloan Wilson.

Past Students/Alumni

 

	Ben Crosier M.A. 2010 EmailCurrently working on his Ph.D. at the University of Florida, Ben completed his M.A. at SUNY New Paltz in 2010 while doing research in the Geher Lab. His current research interests involve looking at the antecedents of social network structure from an evolutionary psychological point of view. Specifically, his research program investigates how things like life history, personality, affect and intelligence come to shape the large scale structure of human networks.
	Haley Moss Dillon Website Email Currently working on her PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Kansas State University, Haley completed her M.A. at New Paltz in 2011, working in the Geher lab.  Haley is currently working under Dr. Gary Brase on research regarding the evolutionary constraints of decision making.
	Mary Finn EmailMary joined the lab in 2010 after graduating from SUNY Albany where she worked with Gordon Gallup in his Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. Her interests span the field of psychology, but she is currently focusing on the intersection of Clinical, Forensic and Evolutionary Psychology. Her current research investigates female counter adaptations to male sexual coercion, hopefully with positive implications for the field of rape prevention.
	Ari J. Freuman Email Ari studied History and Psychology here at SUNY – New Paltz, graduating with his B.A.’s in 2008. He joined the psychology graduate program in Fall 2009. His research interests include mate choice, evolved mating strategies and courtship within the context of long-term mating. Having finished his coursework, Ari is currently working on his thesis, in which he plans to develop a theoretical framework behind evolved courtship behaviors. As a side study, Ari is employing morphometric analyses in order to examine which types of attributes (both physical and non-physical) confer either suspected short-term or long-term male mating strategies.
	Daniel Gambacorta Class of 2009 EmailDaniel graduated in 2009 from SUNY New Paltz, with a major in psychology and minors in sociology and evolutionary studies. As of October 2010, he is a Master’s student at New Mexico State University in the social psychology program. He is interested in social status, morality, positive psychology, and mating.
	Daniel Glass Website Email Daniel graduated from the lab in 2012 with his M.A. He is interested in Evolutionary Clinical Psychology, the study of how biological evolution has shaped the mind, and the resulting implications for the classification, understanding, and treatment of mental disorders. Daniel is currently serving as part-time instructor in UMass Boston’s psychology department, project leader on PsychTable.org, secretary of the  Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society, and editorial assistant for the  Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology.
	Terry Grandis Email Terry joined the lab in Fall 2011 as a Senior. She is an Industrial-Organizational Psychology major and a member of Psi Chi. Her research interests include U.S. body hair culture, the female orgasm, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, the overmedicalization of sex, addictive personalities, and cardiac psychology. She is currently working on a study that looks at sex differences in sports participation through an evolutionary lens.
	Laura Johnsen Website Email Laura joined the lab in 2007 as a junior in high school. She is now a senior majoring in both Psychology and Theatre Arts with a concentration in Costume Design. She is also an Evolutionary Studies Minor and the President of the Evolutionary Studies Club. Her current research projects are studying divorce patterns and their correlations with the male: female mortality ratio, applying theories from evolutionary psychology to current sex and health education curriculum in high school settings, analyzing how childhood injuries may relate to life history strategy, and analyzing Harlequin Blaze novels from an Evolutionary Perspective.
	Abbey Kurtz Email Abbey started Lab during the Fall 2009 semester as a Junior. She is a psychology major with a minor in Evolutionary Studies and is presently the assistant to the Evolutionary Studies program. Abbey is currently doing research in applying evolutionary theories to the current sex and health education curriculum in high school settings.
	Heather Mangione Class of 2007, M.A. 2010 EmailHeather completed both her undergrad and Master’s degree at New Paltz. While in the lab, she worked with Glenn to start NEEPS, and wrote her BA Honors Thesis on controversies surrounding EP and the formation of NEEPS. Her interests are culture, learning, parenting, immigration, and human development. Heather’s MA thesis was on immigrant mothers’ parenting beliefs. As of October 2010, she was enrolled in a Developmental Psychology PhD program at Clark University (expected grad date May 2015).
	Ashley Peterson Email Ashley joined the lab in the spring of 2010, after graduating from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in biology.  Her research interests lie in personality and individual differences from an evolutionary perspective.  She is currently working on a project with Glenn Geher investigating the relationships between Mating Intelligence, Personality, Sociosexuality, Life History Strategy, and preferences for certain sexual acts.