Professor Blackwell is a human biologist and behavioral ecologist whose research examines health and life history in small scale Amazonian societies. His research examines how immune function develops in populations exposed to high levels of pathogens and how early life experiences shape health later in life in both small scale and industrialized populations. His research incorporates both field and laboratory work to examine biological outcomes. His other interests include examining how market integration affects health and development, senescence and aging, and ecological effects on parental investment and growth.
The questions motivating Professor Blackwell’s research are the fundamental questions of life history theory: How do organisms allocate resources to the competing demands of growth, reproduction, and somatic maintenance? How do organisms use cues in their environments to predict future demands? How do early environments affect health and well-being later in life? How does our modern environment differ from the conditions under which we evolved, and what are the consequences of our novel environment on health and ontogeny?  His current work addresses what has come to be known as the hygiene hypothesis, which postulates that some of our diseases of “modernity” such as diabetes, obesity, and allergy, may occur because in our modern sterile environments our immune systems are not challenged by the pathogens we evolved with, and thus react in non-adaptive ways.
Professor Blackwell is co-director of the Human Biodemography laboratory, with Michael Gurven, and director of the Human Biology and Ecological Immunology Laboratory.

Shuar Life History Project

Tsimane Life History Project

Blackwell AD, Gurven MD, Sugiyama LS, Madimenos FC, Liebert, MA, Martin, MA, Kaplan HS, and Snodgrass JJ. (2011) Evidence for a peak shift in a humoral response to helminths: Age profiles of IgE in the Shuar of Ecuador, the Tsimane of Bolivia, and the U.S. NHANES, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 5(6): e1218.


Blackwell AD, Snodgrass JJ, Madimenos FC, and Sugiyama LS. (2010) Life history, immune function, and intestinal helminths: trade-offs among immunoglobulin E, C-reactive protein, and growth in an Amazonian population, American Journal of Human Biology 22 (6): 836-848.

Blackwell, AD, Pryor, G, Pozo, J, Tiwia, W, and Sugiyama, LS. (2009) Growth and market integration in Amazonia: A comparison of growth indicators between Shuar, Shiwiar, and nonindigenous school children, American Journal of Human Biology 21(2): 161-171. DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.20838. http://goo.gl/h2w0K

Gurven MD, Blackwell AD, Eid Rodriguez, D, Stieglitz, J, Kaplan, H. (2012) Does blood pressure inevitably rise with age? Longitudinal evidence among forager-horticulturalists, Hypertension, 60(1): 25-33.

Madimenos FC, Snodgrass JJ, Blackwell AD, Liebert MA, Cepon, TJ, and Sugiyama LS. (2011) Normative calcaneal quantitative ultrasound data for the indigenous Shuar and Non-Shuar colonos of the Ecuadorian Amazon, Archives of Osteoporosis 6(1-2): 39-49,

Madimenos FC, Snodgrass JJ, Liebert M, Blackwell AD, and Sugiyama LS. (2011) Physical activity in an indigenous Ecuadorian forager-horticulturalist population as measured using accelerometry, American Journal of Human Biology 23(4): 488-497.