Monique Borgerhoff Mulder (born April 1953) is an American evolutionary anthropologist. She is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

Early life and education

Borgerhoff Mulder was born in April 1953 in Den Haag, Holland but was raised in Beirut and Great Britain. She completed her

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

and

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degrees at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

and her PhD in anthropology at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Career

Following her PhD and post-doctoral fellowship at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, Borgerhoff Mulder joined the anthropology faculty at the

in 1990. Borgerhoff Mulder and her husband Tim Caro began conducting research in Mpimbwe, Tanzania, in 1995 which evolved to her gathering detailed economic, health and social information on the families in Kibaoni. She continued to work with members of the community as her research evolved to understanding the dynamics of

polygyny Polygyny () is a form of polygamy entailing the marriage of a man to several women. The term polygyny is from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); . Incidence Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any other continent. Some scholar ...

. In 2015, Borgerhoff Mulder's research team compared polygynous and monogamous households in 56 villages in northern Tanzania to see how their access to food and healthier children differed. Borgerhoff Mulder retired from UC Davis in 2019 and joined the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at ...

in Germany. In August 2021, Borgerhoff Mulder became an external researcher at the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...

. Later that month, she was elected a Member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

for her projects relating to life history, inequality, natural resource management and patterned cultural variation.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Borgerhoff Mulder, Monique Living people 1953 births American women anthropologists University of California, Davis faculty Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Northwestern University alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences