Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Nicole Hess' Research Anthropology

Nicole H. Hess, Ph.D.

DSC_7095Departments:
Anthropology
Arts and Sciences

nicolehess@wsu.edu
Phone: (360) 546-9104
Located in Life Sciences (VSCI) 130
Office Hours: Tuesday & Thursday 9-5

Education

  • BA in Anthropology, UCLA
  • MA in Anthropology, UCSB
  • PhD in Anthropology, UCSB

About Dr. Hess

Trained as a biological anthropologist, Dr. Hess received a BA from UCLA in 1997, an MA from UCSB in 1999, and a PhD from UCSB in 2006. She completed a predoctoral fellowship with the Max Planck Institute for Human Developmentā€™s LIFE program in 2005, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship with the Institute for Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin in 2007. Dr. Hess is currently a visiting assistant professor in the Anthropology Dept. at WSU Vancouver.

Research

Dr. Hess studies coalitional competition in evolutionary perspective. She conducted her anthropological fieldwork in college Greek communities, and has conducted numerous experiments testing hypotheses derived from “Informational Warfare” theory, which proposes that coalitions may be useful in reputational competition (via, e.g., gossip) due to their improved abilities to collect, analyze, and disseminate relevant information. More broadly, she is interested in the evolution of cooperation in small groups.

 

Courses

Course IDTitleMeeting TimeLocationSemesterSyllabus
Anthro 101General AnthropologyFall
Anthro 381Primate Behavioral Ecology
Anthro 395 Topics in AnthropologyPop Culture in Darwinian Perspective
Anthro 395 Topics in AnthropologyWomen in Darwinian Perspective
Anthro 468Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature