Kevin Lala Explained

Kevin Lala
Birth Name:Kevin Neville Lala
Birth Date:5 October 1962
Other Names:Kevin Laland
Nationality:English
Fields:Behavioral biology
Evolutionary biology
Workplaces:University of St Andrews
Education:University College London (Ph.D., 1990)
Alma Mater:University of Southampton
Thesis Title:Social transmission in Norway rats and its implications for evolutionary theory
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Thesis Year:1990
Doctoral Advisor:Henry Plotkin
Known For:Niche construction theory
Awards:Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award
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Kevin Neville Lala (formerly Kevin Neville Laland; born 5 October 1962)[1] [2] is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College London,[3] he was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the University of St Andrews in 2002. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory[4] and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis.[5] He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Biology. He has also received a European Research Council Advanced Grant,[6] a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award,[7] and a John Templeton Foundation grant.[8] He was the president of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association from 2007 to 2010[9] and a former president of the Cultural Evolution Society.[10] Lala is currently an external faculty of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research.[11]

Cognition and learning

The Lala Lab is primarily focused on animal social learning, innovation, and intelligence,[12] as well as human evolution, particularly the evolution of cognition and culture.[13] Their work lies at the interdisciplinary interface of evolutionary biology, animal behavior, ecology, and psychology.[14]

Niche construction theory

Following John Odling-Smee's attempt in 1988 to formalize the process of niche construction as an evolutionary process,[15] Odling-Smee, Lala, and Marcus W. Feldman developed a theoretical framework – Niche Construction Theory – that models niche construction as an evolutionary process reciprocally interacting with the process of natural selection.[16] This theory has been applied widely across multiple fields, including ecology[17] [18] evolutionary developmental biology,[19] and human and cultural evolution.[20] [21] [22]

Extended evolutionary synthesis

In the mid-2010s, Kevin Lala, Tobias Uller, and colleagues pushed for an extended evolutionary synthesis in a series of high-impact articles.[23] [24] From 2015 to 2018, Uller and Lala led a large international John Templeton Foundation grant to test key hypotheses and assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis.[25]

Anti-racism work

Kevin Lala previously served on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion division of the School of Biology as deputy director.[26] He is currently serving as an anti-racism advocate,[27] publishing articles[28] [29] on racism in academia.

Lala changed his name from Laland, stating on his lab website "Lala was my original family name, which my parents anglicized when I was 4, in an attempt to reduce the racism that their children experienced. I may have benefited from my surname being anglicized, but it did not sit right with me that I should still bear that name more than 50 years later. I wish to celebrate my ancestry not hide it. I am proud of my Parsi Indian heritage. I am not going to be intimidated by racists."[30]

Publications

Journal articles

Books

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Laland, Kevin N. . Library of Congress Name Authority File . 2018-10-10.
  2. Web site: Current lab members – The Lala Lab . 2023-02-01 . lalandlab.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk.
  3. Odling-Smee . J. . Laland . K. N. . Feldman . M. W. . February 2000 . Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change . Behavioral and Brain Sciences . 23 . 1 . 131–146; discussion 146–175 . 0140-525X . 11303338 . 10.1017/s0140525x00002417. 13893525 .
  4. Book: Laland . K. N. . Odling-Smee . J. . Feldman . M. W. . 2003 . Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution . Princeton University Press . 488 . 9780691044378.
  5. Web site: Scientists Seek to Update Evolution . Zimmer . Carl . 2016-11-22 . Quanta Magazine . 2018-10-10.
  6. Web site: ERC Funded Projects . European Research Council . 2020-06-24.
  7. Web site: Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship . University of St. Andrews . en . 2020-06-24.
  8. Web site: Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test . John Templeton Foundation . 2020-06-24.
  9. Web site: archived:www.cambridge.org/core/membership/ehbea/about-us. cambridge.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20201101051202/https://www.cambridge.org/core/membership/ehbea/about-us . 2022-10-21. 1 November 2020 .
  10. Web site: About Us . 2023-02-01 . culturalevolutionsociety.org.
  11. Web site: People External Faculty Discover The KLI . 2023-03-10 . kli.ac.at.
  12. Toyokawa . Wataru . Whalen . Andrew . Laland . Kevin N. . 2019-01-21 . Social learning strategies regulate the wisdom and madness of interactive crowds . Nature Human Behaviour . en . 3 . 2 . 183–193 . 10.1038/s41562-018-0518-x . 30944445 . 10023/18143 . 256703977 . 2397-3374. free .
  13. Laland . Kevin . Seed . Amanda . 2021-01-04 . Understanding Human Cognitive Uniqueness . Annual Review of Psychology . en . 72 . 1 . 689–716 . 10.1146/annurev-psych-062220-051256 . 33400565 . 230784383 . 0066-4308.
  14. Web site: The Lala Lab – Research in the School of Biology . 2023-02-01 . lalandlab.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk . en-GB.
  15. Odling-Smee FJ (1988) Niche-constructing phenotypes. In: Plotkin HC (ed) The Role of Behavior in Evolution. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 73–132
  16. Odling-Smee . F. John . Laland . Kevin N. . Feldman . Marcus W. . 1996 . Niche Construction . The American Naturalist . 147 . 4 . 641–648 . 10.1086/285870 . 2463239 . 222326061 . 0003-0147.
  17. Laland . K. N. . Odling-Smee . F. J. . Feldman . M. W. . 1999-08-31 . Evolutionary consequences of niche construction and their implications for ecology . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . en . 96 . 18 . 10242–10247 . 10.1073/pnas.96.18.10242 . 0027-8424 . 17873 . 10468593. 1999PNAS...9610242L . free .
  18. Matthews . Blake . De Meester . Luc . Jones . Clive G. . Ibelings . Bas W. . Bouma . Tjeerd J. . Nuutinen . Visa . de Koppel . Johan van . Odling-Smee . John . May 2014 . Under niche construction: an operational bridge between ecology, evolution, and ecosystem science . Ecological Monographs . en . 84 . 2 . 245–263 . 10.1890/13-0953.1 . 2014EcoM...84..245M . 0012-9615.
  19. Laland . Kevin N. . Odling-Smee . John . Gilbert . Scott F. . 2008-11-15 . EvoDevo and niche construction: building bridges . Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution . en . 310B . 7 . 549–566 . 10.1002/jez.b.21232. 18756522 . 2008JEZB..310..549L .
  20. Kendal . Jeremy . Tehrani . Jamshid J. . Odling-Smee . John . 2011-03-27 . Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . en . 366 . 1566 . 785–792 . 10.1098/rstb.2010.0306 . 0962-8436 . 3048995 . 21320894.
  21. Laland . Kevin N. . Odling-Smee . John . Myles . Sean . February 2010 . How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together . Nature Reviews Genetics . 11 . 2 . 137–148 . 10.1038/nrg2734 . 20084086 . 10287878 . 1471-0056.
  22. Laland . Kevin N. . Odling-Smee . John . Feldman . Marcus W. . February 2000 . Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change . Behavioral and Brain Sciences . 23 . 1 . 131–146 . 10.1017/s0140525x00002417 . 11303338 . 13893525 . 0140-525X.
  23. Laland . Kevin . Uller . Tobias . Feldman . Marc . Sterelny . Kim . Müller . Gerd B. . Moczek . Armin . Jablonka . Eva . Odling-Smee . John . Wray . Gregory A. . Hoekstra . Hopi E. . Futuyma . Douglas J. . Lenski . Richard E. . Mackay . Trudy F. C. . Schluter . Dolph . Strassmann . Joan E. . October 2014 . Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? . Nature . en . 514 . 7521 . 161–164 . 10.1038/514161a . 25297418 . 2014Natur.514..161L . 4467421 . 1476-4687. free .
  24. Laland . Kevin N. . Uller . Tobias . Feldman . Marcus W. . Sterelny . Kim . Müller . Gerd B. . Moczek . Armin . Jablonka . Eva . Odling-Smee . John . 2015-08-22 . The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions . Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 282 . 1813 . 20151019 . 10.1098/rspb.2015.1019 . 4632619 . 26246559.
  25. Web site: Extended Evolutionary Synthesis – An integrative research program . 2023-01-27 . en-GB.
  26. Web site: Committee – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion . 2023-01-27 . biology.st-andrews.ac.uk.
  27. Web site: Anti-racism – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion . 2023-01-27 . biology.st-andrews.ac.uk.
  28. Laland . Kevin N. . 2020-08-25 . Racism in academia, and why the 'little things' matter . Nature . en . 584 . 7822 . 653–654 . 10.1038/d41586-020-02471-6. 32843730 . 2020Natur.584..653L . 221285014 .
  29. Web site: ReSourcE Spring 2021 . 2023-01-27 . Royal Society of Edinburgh . en-GB.
  30. Web site: Current lab members – the Laland Lab . 23 February 2024 .

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