Christina Athena Aktipis is an associate professor in the department of psychology at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is o ...

. She is the director of the Interdisciplinary Cooperation Initiative and the co-director of the Human Generosity Project. She is also the director of the Cooperation and Conflict lab at Arizona State, vice president of the International Society for Evolution, Ecology and Cancer (ISEEC), and former director of human and social evolution and co-founder of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at

UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life ...

. She is a

cooperation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition ...

theorist, an

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biol ...

, an

evolutionary psychologist Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...

, and a cancer biologist who works at the intersection of those fields. Aktipis is the author of the books ''The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer'' (2020) and ''A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times'' (2024). She hosts ''Zombified'', a podcast that discusses the science of zombification in daily life. The podcast is an extension of the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting (ZAMM), a biannual conference chaired by Aktipis. ZAMM is an interdisciplinary conference where art, science, and medicine come together with the aim of solving complex issues.

Career

Aktipis earned a B.A. in psychology from

Reed College Reed College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland, Portland, Oregon, E ...

in 2002. She obtained an M.A. in 2004 and a Ph.D. in 2008 in psychology from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. In 2011, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in ecology and evolutionary biology at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

. Between 2011 and 2014, Aktipis was an assistant research professor in the department of psychology at

while also serving as director of human and social evolution at the Center for Evolution and Cancer, at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...

. During 2013–2014, she was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study,

Berlin Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin () is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled after the original IAS in Princeto ...

. Upon her return to the United States, Aktipis and her colleague Lee Cronk, a professor in the department of anthropology at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

, co-founded the Human Generosity Project. Since 2015, Aktipis holds an appointment as an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Arizona State.

Projects

Cooperation in the Apocalypse

The Cooperation in the Apocalypse team, which includes Aktipis, brings together interdisciplinary scientists to examine human behavior in times of crisis and panic, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The team started collecting data in March 2020, a few weeks before the United States went into lockdown, asking questions about mask-wearing behaviors, risk-taking behaviors, exercise routines, mental health, friendships, outdoor recreation, and more.

Interdisciplinary Cooperation Initiative

The ASU Interdisciplinary Cooperation Initiative brings together scholars from across disciplines who are joined by a shared interest in understanding the fundamental principles that drive cooperation. It holds workshops and working-group meetings with faculty in and outside of ASU, organizes a biannual Cooperation and Conflict Symposium, and the Interdisciplinary Study of Cooperation Winter School, taught by cooperation researchers. In addition to supporting the interdisciplinary study of cooperation, it also supports broader ventures to cultivate cooperation among disciplines. Aktipis hosts a series of interactive livestreams joined by cooperation scientists.

Human Generosity Project

A large focus of Aktipis' work is cooperation in humans, focusing especially on helping behavior that occurs in times of need. Aktipis co-directs the Human Generosity Project with Lee Cronk of Rutgers University. Together with their team, Aktipis and Cronk study the relationship between biological and cultural influences on human generosity by using multiple methodologies such as field work, laboratory experiments, and computational models.

Microbiome and human behavior

Microbes have access to many systems underlying human behavior. In her lab, Aktipis and colleagues explore how the

microbiome A microbiome () is the community of microorganisms that can usually be found living together in any given habitat. It was defined more precisely in 1988 by Whipps ''et al.'' as "a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably wel ...

may play a role in eating and social behaviors.

Kombucha

Kombucha Kombucha (also tea mushroom, tea fungus, or Manchurian mushroom when referring to the Microbiological culture, culture; Latin name ''Medusomyces gisevii'') is a fermented beverage, fermented, effervescent, Sweetened beverage, sweetened black ...

is a drink made by the fermentation of tea by

symbiotic bacteria Symbiotic bacteria are bacteria living in symbiosis with another organism or each other. For example, rhizobia living in root nodules of legumes provide nitrogen fixing activity for these plants. Types of symbiosis Types of symbiotic relations ...

and yeast. Aktipis uses this beverage to explore microbial resource exchange and to determine whether kombucha symbiosis is able to fight off pathogens that single species of microbes cannot.

Cancer and multicellular cooperation

Multicellular bodies are societies of cells that must cooperate and coordinate to contribute to organism fitness. Cancer represents a breakdown of multicellular cooperation. Aktipis examines cancer through this lens, using evolutionary theory, computational modeling, and clinical collaborations. Her most recent work on cancer is through the Arizona Cancer and Evolution Center, where she co-leads Project 1: Organismal Evolution and Cancer Defenses and the Outreach Unit.

''Zombified'' podcast

Aktipis hosts the educational podcast ''Zombified'', in which she talks about ways in which we are vulnerable to be controlled by organisms and factors outside ourselves and what that means for our future. It features interviews with ASU psychology department faculty, other ASU faculty, and scholars from outside ASU talking about forces beyond our control that affect our behavior. It covers diverse disciplines, including evolutionary biology, psychology,

parasitology Parasitology is the study of parasites, their host (biology), hosts, and the relationship between them. As a List of biology disciplines, biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in questio ...

, microbiology, computer science, and more.

Channel Zed

Aktipis has created an educational TV channel in response to the challenges of hosting an in-person conference during the COVID-19 pandemic. Channel Zed is home to interactive livestream shows about how to survive and thrive in the apocalypse. As a think tank where scholars, artists, practitioners, and thought leaders come together, Channel Zed provides opportunities to grapple with humanity's most challenging threats while celebrating examples of resilience and strength. Channel Zed covers current events, lifestyle programming, emergency medicine and survival, history, culture, and other topics.

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * *

Selected talks

* "Why Do We Get Cancer?", Institute for Advanced Study,

, 2014 * "The Science of Sharing", The Exploratorium Museum, San Francisco, 2015 * "Do You Believe in Generosity", TEDxASU, 2016 * "Why Cancer Is Everywhere", Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, 2018 * "The Evolutionary Biology of Zombification", Center for Evolution and Medicine,

, 2019

References

External links

*
Profile
on

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

Arizona Cancer and Evolution Center

Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF

The Human Generosity Project

The Cooperation Lab

Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting

Zombified Podcast

Interdisciplinary Cooperation Initiative

Channel Zed
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aktipis, Athena Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Arizona State University faculty American cancer researchers Reed College alumni University of Arizona alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences alumni American women evolutionary biologists American evolutionary biologists