Christopher D. Lynn

Christopher D. Lynn is a biocultural medical anthropologist focused on cultural impacts on health and human evolutionary biology. His PhD research (2009, University at Albany) focused on speaking in tongues and stress response among Apostolic Pentecostals in New York. He has several ongoing research projects that involve embodied belongingness and health, tattooing and immune response, and fireside relaxation. Lynn works with several collaborators on these projects in the U.S., Costa Rica, Pacific Islands, and Pacific Northwest.

His training is in biological anthropology, but his orientation is as a biocultural medical anthropologist and human behavioral ecologist. He teaches courses in biological anthropology, human sexuality, evolutionary studies, neuroanthropology, primatology, and more.

Lynn is a Leshner Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a program for public engagement with the sciences and engineering. He is also Public Relations Chair for the Human Biology Association, an Editorial Board Member for the American Journal of Human Biology, program committee member for the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and co-host the weekly podcast The Sausage of Science. He founded and directs a unique four-field outreach and service-learning program called Anthropology Is Elemental. Previously, Lynn founded the Evolutionary Studies minor at UA, and still collaborates with colleagues internationally to seed and promote interdisciplinary evolutionary studies.