Marc Hauser
Harvard University — Cambridge, MA
Marc Hauser’s research sits at the interface between evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience and is aimed at understanding how the minds of human and nonhuman animals evolved. By studying nonhuman animals (monkeys, apes, dogs) in both the wild and in captivity, as well as human infants and adults, Hauser’s work has unlocked some of the mysteries of language evolution, conceptual representation, social cooperation, communication, and morality. He is a Harvard College Professor, Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Organismic & Evolutionary Biology, and Human Evolutionary Biology, Co-Director of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Program, Director of the Cognitive Evolution Laboratory, and the author of more than 200 papers and five books, including The Evolution of Communication (1996, MIT) , Wild Minds (2000, Holt), and most recently Moral Minds: How nature designed our universal sense of right and wrong (Harper Collins/Ecco). In addition to his research and teaching at Harvard, he spends a significant amount of time giving public lectures and interviews for national and international radio and newspaper
Hauser received a BS from Bucknell University and a PhD from UCLA. He has taught at Makerere University, Uganda, University of California, Davis, and Harvard University. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award , Guggenheim Fellowship, Science Medal from the College de France, as well as several awards from Harvard for his teaching.
Marc can be reached via e-mail at mdh102559 [at] gmail [dot] com
Watch below as Marc discusses the evolution of morality:
