Alex Mesoudi

Consider joining us in Zurich for EHBEA 2027! This is a cool interdisciplinary conference bringing together anthropologists, psychologists, economists, and behavioral biologists. We've got excellent plenary speakers! Follow @ehbea2027.bsky.social for all the updates! See www.ehbea2027.com for detail

Job alert for theoreticians! 2yr NERC-funded postdoc to model coevolution of learning & social structure. With Bram Kuijper, @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social @andyradford.bsky.social @ljnbrent.bsky.social Based @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful Cornwall Deadline Dec 14. Apply: tinyurl.com/3ym39cuv

#HotOffThePress 🔥🖊️ “Social relationships promote access to food and information in wild jackdaws” Oct 2026. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. @lucahahn.bsky.social @guillmcivor.bsky.social @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social @shoalgroup.bsky.social & @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

We’re pleased to share the results of the CES Executive elections for the 2026–2029 term: President-Elect: Thomas Morgan Secretary: Elena Miu Executive Ordinary Members: Monica Tamariz, David Lawson, Jana Nenadalová, & Stephen Vaisey Please join us in congratulating our new elected colleagues!

📢 The Call for Abstracts for the Culture Conference 2027 is OPEN! 🗓️ Deadline: 30 November 2026 We welcome submissions from all career stages and relevant disciplines. 🔎Details & submission info: culture-conference.com/abstract-sub... Keynote speakers will be announced soon - stay tuned!

🦋 Butterfly wing patterns create motion illusions that protect them from predators! Our new study (8 years in the making) is out in Nature today doi.org/10.1038/s415... @grahancock.bsky.social @esbriolat.bsky.social @scienceanna.bsky.social @lauraakelley.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social

🚨 Applied Cultural Evolution Brownbag Series 🚨 Two inaugural discussions: Oct 7 What is (uniquely) applied cultural evolution? Caroline Graf, U. Zurich Dec 9 What can cultural evolution offer climate adaptation practitioners? Christine Lindell, World Vision Australia tinyurl.com/3st6zy79

Autumn 2026 Cooperation Colloquia We have an exciting interdisciplinary series of speakers with Kasper Otten, @patkanngiesser.bsky.social, @charlesefferson.bsky.social @nikoletaglyn.bsky.social, Cameron Curtin, & Devesh Rustagi Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...

ACE Research Grant Alert 🚨! CES will give out two awards of up to $3000 each to support early career research projects in cultural evolution. The award is open to applicants worldwide, with an application deadline of October 9th 2026, 9:00 AM AoE. Applications: forms.gle/dsLdKQuNBH4W...

Very sorry to have to miss this, it's a great lineup of speakers

One reason England does so well is our second generation immigrants outperform their peers which is not true in most OECD countries. We are also very good at integration. And it's v sad that this is never acknowledge in debates on immigration.

Are you interested in lexical competition, agent-based modelling, strong inference and Ukrainian? Then this paper, just published in @pnasnexus.org, is for you. With @oliviermorin.bsky.social and @sobchuk.bsky.social, we asked a simple question: why do some words become more common than others?

New tutorial preprint about simulation-based inference! Shows how to fit a cultural evo model to baby name data using approx Bayesian computation, random forests, and deep learning. Wrote for @eslr.bsky.social but wanted to share with others in @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social! :) osf.io/preprints/so...

Including podcast episodes in my Evolution & Human Behaviour module for the first time this year. I have episodes from @manymindspod.bsky.social , @epthepod.bsky.social , @ilarimakela.bsky.social & @thedissenteryt.bsky.social . Any others I've missed?

Fascinating for anyone interested in evolutionary approaches to human behaviour

Job posting: Associate Professor in behavioral ecology and cultural evolution within the Department of Ecology and Evolution (DEE) at the University of Lausanne. Deadline for applications is 30.09.2026: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli... (there is a button to switch to English at the top right)

I summarised my path in (social) science as a love story for cultural evolution: selfmademodeler.wordpress.com/2026/07/28/c...

Cultural Evolution of Perfumes since 1900 https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.19520 Perfumes are cultural artifacts and works of sensory art, composed from a finite, recombinable palette of notes that together evoke a distinctive scent impression. Here, we assemble the largest perfume corpus compiled ...📈🤖

Feels like GenAI still has some ways to go

Deadline for these funded MbyRes ecosystem resilience positions is in a week and a half!

I really like this paper I did with @nathan-gabriel.bsky.social and @avbell.bsky.social, now out in EHS. It's an unusual paper because we tried to model the emergence of complex, multidimensional and intersectional identity structures from a signaling perspective. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Trial and error only gets you so far in Klondike search spaces. To frog leap in these, it's much much better to go the collective intelligence route. And teaching is the fastest elevator for such leaps. @johanlind.bsky.social

Save the date! 📅 PSGB is hosting an online workshop on the topic “Cognition for Conservation and Captive Care” (2nd September 2026). Check out the first look for our speakers working across primate behaviour and cognition & register your interest to receive the workshop link! 🐒 shorturl.at/HDvXA

Are there typical patterns in global fertility decline? In my new paper, I show that it can be largely described by just two pathways. This paper also proposes a mechanism behind two pathways, and a possible policy for fertility recovery: lowering education costs. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!

📣 I'm hiring! Two positions (PhD student & Postdoc) in my ERC project Macroevolution of European Literature. Let's study the cultural evolution of literature using massive data 📚📈 📍Frankfurt | Apply by August 15 Details: www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/career/jo... Please repost to help spread the word!

New paper with Ángel Jiménez, @keith-jensen.bsky.social, Lei Chang and Hui Jing Lu Limited evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

My department has funding for 2-year MByRes studentships (full tuition fees and research allowance) on ecosystem resilience, broadly defined. Apply to do a project with me modelling social-ecological networks. #culturalevolution #socialnetworks ecologyconservation.exeter.ac.uk/masteer-coho...

My department has funding for 2-year MByRes studentships (full tuition fees and research allowance) on ecosystem resilience, broadly defined. Apply to do a project with me modelling social-ecological networks. #culturalevolution #socialnetworks ecologyconservation.exeter.ac.uk/masteer-coho...

New preprint led by @lucasmolleman.bsky.social investigates social information use across the human lifespan. Testing >40,000 participants aged 6-80 in museums in Berlin and Japan. psyarxiv.com/hec96

🚨 ACE Seminar We’re excited to host Dr. Patrick Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social in our upcoming ACE Seminar! 🗓 Tuesday, Jun 16, 2026 🕖 2:00 PM JST (UTC+9) 💻 Online via Zoom 🔗 To receive the Zoom link, please send a blank email to ace-seminar+subscribe@googlegroups.com

New episode!! 🎙️🎉 A conversation w/ @vivek123.bsky.social about Man the Hunter. The idea that male hunting propelled our evolution is old and contested. Yet it endures, especially in the popular imagination. Is it merely a "paleofantasy," or is there more to it? Listen: disi.org/is-man-the-h...

Our latest episode of Transmissions is out! This one features Prof. Dr. Lucy Aplin, a leading cognitive ecologist from the University of Zurich and Australian National University. This marks our very first episode dedicated entirely to understanding animal culture! youtu.be/M7qCTKRNVuA?...

Here's a proper mathematical model of the interaction between conformity and migration www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... mostly coming to the same conclusions as the simulations I did here journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Great opportunity for anyone wanting to get involved in the direction Cultural Evolution institutions go. You get to work with lovely people and help guide this nascent organization.

Here's @ruthmace.bsky.social giving the inaugural Tinbergen lecture @uniexecec.bsky.social today, asking why there are so many celibate monks in Tibet

Thanks to the organisers of @ces2026.bsky.social : @anthrosarah.bsky.social , @zhgarfield.com , @matcharbonneau.bsky.social and @edseabright.bsky.social plus their student helpers for organising an amazing conference

It's an all-star cultural evolution / evolutionary psychology / human behavioural ecology panel, with Joe Henrich, Fiona Jordan, @edhagen.net and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder