cultural evolution society 2016 election results

Cultural Evolution Society 2016 Election Results

Prepared by:

Joe Brewer Culture Designer Evolution Institute August 25th, 2016

Table of Contents

Section Heading Page Range

The First CES Executive Committee 3

A Global Perspective on Voting Behavior 4

A More Granular “Regional” Picture 5

Results for Each Candidate Position 6-12

Office of President 6

Office of Secretary 7

Office of Treasurer 7

Member Position 1 — Male from Asian Region 8

Member Position 2 — Female/Male from India Region 8

Member Position 3 — Female from Africa Region 9

Member Position 4 — Female from Open Regions 9

Member Position 5 — Male from Open Regions 10


Member Position 7 — Male from Open Regions 11


Student Representatives 12

Female Student Representative 12

On Diversity and Next Steps 13

Cultural Evolution Society - 2016 Election Results "2

The First CES Executive Committee We are excited to announce the results are in for our inaugural election—with clear winners for each of the 13 positions on the Executive Committee. This report provides an overview of the outcomes with commentary on the global nature of participation for our membership.

The election was held online for a six week period starting on Monday, July 11th and ending August 22nd. We choose this extended period for voting as many of our members engage in summer field research projects and we wanted to be inclusive for those who might be delayed in responding to email notifications inviting them to vote.

After receiving 379 completed ballots, the results are in. Here are the names of the elected:

CES Executive Committee

PRESIDENT SECRETARY TREASURERPeter J. Richerson Fiona Jordan Alex Mesoudi

———

MEMBER #1 — ASIA REGION MEMBER #2 — INDIA REGION Kenichi Aoki Sumitava Mukherjee

MEMBER #3 — AFRICA REGION MEMBER #4 — OPEN REGION FEMALEPurity Kiura Michele Gelfand

MEMBER #5 — OPEN REGION MALE MEMBER #6 — OPEN REGION FEMALERussell Gray Monique Borgerhoff Mulder

MEMBER #7 — OPEN REGION MALE MEMBER #8 — OPEN REGION FEMALERob Boyd Michele Kline

STUDENT REPRESENTATIVESJoshua Conrad JacksonNicole Wen

PRESIDENT-ELECTDan Sperber


A Global Perspective on Voting Behavior

The founding membership is comprised of more than 1500 people around the world. A majority hail from North America and Western Europe. Yet as this map shows, we had voter turnout from every continent on Earth where humans reside.

This is a very important outcome for our first election as a scientific society that strives to become globally representative in its lifetime. We carefully engaged in member recruitment last year to bring people together from as many nations as possible. The data presented here comes from the IP addresses used by voters—showing where they were submitting their ballots from all over the planet.

Care was also taken to recruit members from a wide diversity of research fields that are relevant to cultural evolution. This was what enabled us to recruit candidates for officer positions from a variety of academic disciplines. More on that below.

What we can feel proud of now is that our efforts have paid off. We have successfully “seeded” a globally diverse community.

Now our task will be to nurture and grow it accordingly.


A More Granular “Regional” Picture Zoom into the two major regions where most of our members reside and you’ll see that we still have an impressive spread of geographies. These maps show voter response within the United States and for many countries of Europe.

I am sharing these maps to convey that we have an engaged membership representing a considerable amount of cultural diversity in their locations. All of you live and work in communities that capture the spread from rural midwestern towns in the US to mountain cities across eastern Europe.

Here you can see that respondents cast their ballots all over the country in the United States.

Our hope is to see members “self-organize” into interest groups around projects and locations. What this map shows is that many locales are within reach on this particular continent.

Similarly, we can see that much of Europe is accessible by our active members. This map shows that nearly every country throughout the region has at least one person who cast a vote in the inaugural election.

Imagine what we can achieve together as we merge intellectual contributions with the cultural landscapes our members have direct access to.

These impressions are important because the field of cultural evolution has so much to offer. When we gathered the “grand challenges” for the field from all of you last fall, it was clear that a variety of theoretical concerns need to be addressed; many practical applications can be developed to help societies function better; and institutional changes will be needed across the academic and practitioner landscapes to achieve these things. We are off to a great start with this election.


http://www.slideshare.net/joebrewer31/what-are-the-grand-challenges-for-cultural-evolution

Results for Each Candidate Position Now for the results in each race. This section explains how each officer position was decided and offers brief commentary about how the outcomes align with our diversity mandate to achieve gender equality in the governing body, represent a diversity of academic fields, include perspectives from different regions of the world, and capture the spectrum of needs from early to late-stage career.

Office of President

The two candidates running for this position were Peter J. Richerson and Dan Sperber. A special condition was held that the runner up would become the “president-elect” to ensure continuity of leadership in this fledgling stage for the society.

As the results show, Pete Richerson is the clear winner. We are delighted to have him as the first CES President—as he is a recognized leader in the field whose guidance and scholarship has been central to the advances made in recent decades.

It is equally delightful to have Dan Sperber as the President-Elect since his work on “cultural attractors” provides a counterweight to the “dual inheritance” theory that Pete helped formulate. Both are thoughtful diplomats, critical scholars, and beloved mentors for a generation of students who have gone on to shape the field in many important ways themselves.


Office of Secretary

The two candidates running for this position were Fiona Jordan and Peter Peregrine.

The position will be taken by Fiona Jordan. She is a cultural evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Bristol who studies kinship, social organization, and language. In her position statement for the election, Fiona expressed her vision to promote interdisciplinary thinking for the society and help researchers from related fields to find a proper home in this community.

Office of Treasurer

The two candidates running for this position were Tanya Broesch and Alex Mesoudi.

The position will be taken by Alex Mesoudi. His research has contributed to the development for integrative frameworks that bring synthesis to the social sciences. As this is a major “grand challenge” identified by the membership (knowledge synthesis), it is lovely to have him serve in this capacity for the society.


Member Position 1 :: Male from Asia Region

The two candidates running for this position were Kenichi Aoki and Masanori Takezawa.

It was a close race with Kenichi Aoki coming out in the lead position. Kenichi’s research focuses on mathematical modeling for gene-culture coevolution, informed by his training in biological anthropology and population genetics. We are delighted to have him representing the Asia Region to help build bridges between East and West where much cross-cultural learning awaits.

Member Position 2 :: Male or Female from India Region

The two candidates running for this position were Sumitava Mukherjee and Shruti Tewari.

This was also a close race with Sumitava coming out in the lead. His research focuses on human judgment and decision-making, which provides a bridge to the cognitive and behavioral sciences. In his statement for the ballot, Sumitava expressed a desire to help the society formulate a clear agenda for member engagement, collaborative research, and outreach to practitioners.


Member Position 3 :: Female from Africa Region

This was a one candidate race with Purity Kiura on the ballot.

We are delighted to have her on board representing this vital region of the world. Purity is Director of Museums, Sites, and Monuments at the National Museum of Kenya.

She has a vision to make cultural evolution widely visible (and available) to students across the African continent. With so much important research taking place at field sites throughout the region, there is great opportunity to engage local communities and get them directly involved.

Member Position 4 :: Female from Open Regions

This was also a one candidate race with Michelle Gelfand on the ballot.

Michelle has been involved with the society since its inception—at a workshop she co-hosted at College Park, Maryland in the spring of 2015.

She is a professor of cross-cultural psychology who studies the strength of social norm adherence in diverse cultural settings. We are delighted to have her representing the vision for innovative, cross-cutting research across fields.

Michelle has great leadership experience in other societies and routinely collaborates with partners around the world.


Member Position 5 :: Male from Open Regions

The two candidates running for this position were Russell Gray and Andrew Whiten.

The position will be taken by Russell Gray. He is a professor at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany where he studies language evolution and animal cognition—including extensive work with the social behavior of crows. Russell brings a strong passion for diversity to the society.


This was another one candidate position with Monique Borgerhoff Mulder on the ballot.

Monique is a human behavioral ecologist with a special interest in demographics, health, and resource management.

Her vision for the society is to actively promote a strong emphasis on field work across diverse contexts, a rigorous comparative approach across theories and methods, and to achieve a truly international representation for the membership.


Member Position 7 :: Male from Open Regions

The two candidates running for this position were Quentin Atkinson and Rob Boyd.

The position will be filled by Rob Boyd. He is a long-time collaborator with our new president, Pete Richerson, with a strong research focus on cultural transmission using the framework of Darwinian evolution. Rob’s vision for the society is that it be a venue for inclusive, interdisciplinary research on the evolution of human behavior. A major concern he has is that the field can be defined too narrowly—failing to forge partnerships with the historical sciences and humanities.


The two candidates running for this position were Laurel Fogarty and Michelle Kline.


The position will go to Michelle Kline. She is a post-doctoral researcher at Arizona State University who specializes in the study of social learning, cultural transmission, and innovation. Michelle sees the interdisciplinary nature of cultural evolution as one of its greatest strengths. Her vision for the society is to create a truly inclusive community that works across disciplinary boundaries and brings synthesis to the vast knowledge that already exists across the academy.

Male Student Representative

The two candidates running for this position were Joshua Conrad Jackson and Ian MacDonald.

The position will be filled by Joshua Jackson. He is an incoming doctoral student at the University of North Carolina who works across the cognitive and evolutionary sciences to study religion, group behavior, and motivation. Joshua is passionate about student engagement and online science communication. He will advocate for cross-disciplinary synthesis and diversity in the community.

Female Student Representative

The two candidates running for this position were Jessica Borushok and Nicole Wen.


The position will be filled by Nicole Wen. She studies the cognitive and social development of children in diverse cultural settings. Nicole shares the vision of many others here for an inclusive and diverse membership. In her statement, she expressed the goal of broadening the intellectual scope of the society and to encourage the involvement of students and early career scientists.

On Diversity and Next Steps A great amount of care was taken to meet our diversity criteria. We hope you are as pleased as we on the CES Election Committee are with the outcome of this election. The large number of member positions are intended to allow for three vital dimensions of diversity:

1. Seed the leadership with ambassadors from regions of the world. This is why we organized the ballot around Africa, Asia, and India to guarantee representation from these important geographies. We also desired to have a representative from Latin America. That is a goal for the next phase of development as we expand our geographic scope.

2. Cast a wide net with respect to intellectual domains. A strong signal has come through that broad inclusivity and knowledge diversity are what makes this field strong. Having eight member positions enables us to begin sampling among the diversity that is already present in our membership—and to assist in its expansion.

3. Ensure that gender equality is represented. All the research shows that few scientific societies succeed at elevating women to equal representation in their leadership. We saw this unique opportunity to start with the composition we want for the future.

Now that these diversity criteria have been met, it is time to begin the formal work of adopting bylaws, planning for the first CES conference in 2017, launching our web presence, designing a peer-review journal tailored to our field, and ongoing discussions about educational and research agendas now that we can move forward together.

It is truly an exciting time to be in the field of cultural evolutionary studies!


cultural evolution society 2016 election results

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