Over the last 15 years of teaching at the University of Maryland, I have tried to ground my research, teaching, and service-related efforts in theoretically rigorous and methodologically sound concepts that reflect my broad scientific training at Cornell University, my extensive ethnographic experiences in Tanzania, Liberia, Cameroon, and Egypt, and my longstanding interests in the human biological consequences of cultural choices, historic events, and environmental exposures. In my research I have stressed the interdisciplinary approach and highlighted the interactive science nature in my work. I have drawn extensively from geography, molecular and population genetics, ethnography, demography, history, evolutionary biology, bioethics, toxicology, epidemiology, and public health and integrated these data in a biocultural anthropological context. Over the last five years, this has translated into new approaches and major insights into human population history and its biological and cultural consequences.

One outcome of this approach is that, over the past 12 years, I have developed and applied ethnogenetic layering and phenotype segregation network analysis as tools for identifying underlying substructure in complex populations. More recently, I have developed application prototypes of these novel techniques to a broad array of research questions, including environmental health, cancer health disparities, and hypertension-related issues. As a consequence, ethnogenetic layering and PSNA is now emerging as viable alternative to the racial model in many areas of health research. We are now investigating the merger of these novel theoretical innovations with technology, so as to broaden the appeal of and access to the multidimensional perspective of anthropology to non-specialists.

In 2002, I co-founded the first human DNA bank in Africa (based at the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon) with the aim of changing the way that anthropological genetic research is done on the African continent (moving away from the colonial approach), enhancing local infrastructure and expertise, and dramatically improving the potential for scientific understanding of the interactions of genotypes and environmental factors in producing specific phenotypes (by providing a local context for data analysis and interpretation). With the cooperation of local scientists, we continue to amass a large and diverse database of African and non-African genotypes which is unique in its ethnographic detail. This research effort will upgrade the quality of genetic data on Africans (and its interpretation) by placing the molecular information within a sophisticated anthropological context.

I have also continued my research on the potential for coevolution among specific human and plant groups through studies of the impact of human exposure to bioactive phytochemicals on (human) metabolic processes and disease susceptibilities. As more is known about the geographical context of plant and human molecular genetic diversity, a fascinating portrait of the stimulatory impact of naturally-occurring plant chemicals (i.e., allelochemicals) on human diversity emerges. This research is a something of a natural analog to pharmacogenetics and promises to importantly illuminate our understanding of the origins and maintenance of human variability, a key interest in our discipline.

My research interests remain theoretical and applied. It is my goal to contribute to both areas and, most importantly, link application with theory, particularly within the area of applied biological anthropology.