Background
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 biological mechanisms through which prostate disease becomes concentrated within the developed West.
Alvarado has conducted field research 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 and work demands, musculoskeletal function, and senescence. This fieldwork informs broader investigations of population and lifespan variation in hormone exposure and health disparities.
Alvarado is 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.
Research Interests
- Human evolutionary ecology
- Social endocrinology
- Health disparities
