Rebecca Sear

Professor
Brunel University London

rebecca.sear@brunel.ac.uk

Field of Study: Anthropology, Demography, Medical/ Life Science
 
Specialization: Biodemography and Genetics, Families and Households, Fertility, Mortality, Health, and Longevity
 
Education: Doctorate (Ph.D, or MD), University College London, Anthropology, 2001
 
Working languages: English
 
British Society for Population Studies


Personal web page:
https://rebeccasear.org.uk/
Curriculum Vitae:
SearCV_IUSSP.pdf
Professional web page:
https://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/rebecca-sear  
 
Professional Summary:

I’m a demographer, anthropologist and human behavioural ecologist, and use an interdisciplinary approach to understand human behaviour, incorporating an evolutionary theoretical framework into my research. I’m keen to promote a greater understanding of evolutionary explanations for human behaviour in the social and health sciences, and to facilitate interdisciplinary work more broadly. I work on questions of demographic and public health interest, including fertility and reproductive development, child health and mortality, and health inequalities; have a particular interest in the family, and how family relationships influence these outcomes; and am increasingly interested in issues related to research integrity, especially related to scientific racism and the resurgence of eugenics.

 

Publications:

Page, AE., Ringen, EJ., Koster, J., Borgerhoff Mulder, M., Kramer, K., Shenk, MK., et al. (2024) 'Women's subsistence strategies predict fertility across cultures, but context matters'. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121 (9). pp. 1 - 10. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2318181121

Burger, O., Lee, R. & Sear, R. Human Evolutionary Demography (2024) Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0251

Sear, R. (2021) 'Demography and the rise, apparent fall, and resurgence of eugenics'. Population Studies, 75 (sup1: 75 years of Population Studies: A diamond anniversary special issue.). pp. 201 - 220. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2021.2009013

Sear, R. (2021) 'The male breadwinner nuclear family is not the 'traditional' human family, and promotion of this myth may have adverse health consequences'. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376 (1827). pp. 1 - 9. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0020

Raybould, A. & Sear, R. Children of the (gender) revolution: a theoretical and empirical synthesis (2020) Population Studies 75(2): 169-190 https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2020.1851748

 
Honorary or professional positions and awards:
 
Fellow of the British Academy