Overview
Louis Calistro Alvarado completed his Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico, with a primary concentration in Evolutionary Anthropology and a secondary concentration in Integrative Biology. His research addresses broad features of human variation, life history evolution, and population health. Overarching aims of his research program converge on investigations of: (1) the adaptive significance of cross-cultural and life course variability in men’s steroid physiology; (2) the role of lifetime hormone exposure in the epidemiology of reproductive cancers; (3) and the socioecological pathways and physiological mechanisms through which prostate disease becomes concentrated within the developed West.
He has conducted fieldwork at a rural agricultural village in the Polish Carpathian Mountains. He uses non-invasive techniques to evaluate physiological processes that intersect men’s nutritional status, parenting demands, health, and aging. This field research informs broader investigations of population and lifespan variation in hormone exposure and health disparities
He is also the Editor for Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective. Human Nature is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal that advances interdisciplinary investigation of the biological, social, and environmental factors that underlie human behavior
Information
Human biology & socioecology, evolutionary endocrinology, and health disparities
Alvarado LC, Valeggia CR, Ellison PT, Lewarch CL, Muller MN. 2020. A comparison of men’s life history, aging, and testosterone levels among Datoga pastoralists, Hadza foragers, and Qom transitional foragers. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology 5:251–73.
Alvarado LC, Muller MN, Eaton M, Emery Thompson M. 2018. Steroid Hormone Reactivity in Fathers Watching Their Children Compete. Human Nature 29:268-82.
Alvarado LC, Muller MN, Emery Thompson M, Klimek M, Nenko I, Jasieńska G. 2015. The Paternal Provisioning Hypothesis: Effects of Workload and Testosterone Production on Men’s Musculature. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 158:19-35.
Alvarado LC. 2013. Do evolutionary life history tradeoffs influence prostate cancer risk? A review of population variation in testosterone levels and prostate cancer disparities. Evolutionary Applications 6(1): 117-133.
Emery Thompson M, Alvarado LC. 2012. Human sexual conflict and sexual coercion in comparative evolutionary perspective. In Oxford Handbook of Sexual Conflict in Humans. Edited by A Goetz & T Shackelford. Oxford University Press. pp. 100-121.
Alvarado, LC. 2010. Population differences in the testosterone levels of young men are associated with prostate cancer disparities in older men. American Journal of Human Biology 22:449–55.