Cultural Evolution Society
2016 Election Results
Prepared by:
Joe Brewer
Culture Designer
Evolution Institute
August 25th, 2016

Table of Contents
Section Heading Page Range
The First CES Executive Committee 3
A Global Perspective on Voting Behavior 4
A More Granular “Regional” Picture 5
Results for Each Candidate Position 6-12
Office of President 6
Office of Secretary 7
Office of Treasurer 7
Member Position 1 — Male from Asian Region 8
Member Position 2 — Female/Male from India Region 8
Member Position 3 — Female from Africa Region 9
Member Position 4 — Female from Open Regions 9
Member Position 5 — Male from Open Regions 10
Member Position 6 — Female from Open Regions 10
Member Position 7 — Male from Open Regions 11
Member Position 8 — Female from Open Regions 11
Student Representatives 12
Female Student Representative 12
On Diversity and Next Steps 13
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The First CES Executive Committee
We are excited to announce the results are in for our inaugural election—with clear winners for
each of the 13 positions on the Executive Committee. This report provides an overview of the
outcomes with commentary on the global nature of participation for our membership.
The election was held online for a six week period starting on Monday, July 11th and ending
August 22nd. We choose this extended period for voting as many of our members engage in
summer field research projects and we wanted to be inclusive for those who might be delayed in
responding to email notifications inviting them to vote.
After receiving 379 completed ballots, the results are in. Here are the names of the elected:
CES Executive Committee
PRESIDENT SECRETARY TREASURER
Peter J. Richerson Fiona Jordan Alex Mesoudi
———
MEMBER #1 — ASIA REGION MEMBER #2 — INDIA REGION
Kenichi Aoki Sumitava Mukherjee
MEMBER #3 — AFRICA REGION MEMBER #4 — OPEN REGION FEMALE
Purity Kiura Michele Gelfand
MEMBER #5 — OPEN REGION MALE MEMBER #6 — OPEN REGION FEMALE
Russell Gray Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
MEMBER #7 — OPEN REGION MALE MEMBER #8 — OPEN REGION FEMALE
Rob Boyd Michele Kline
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES
Joshua Conrad Jackson
Nicole Wen
PRESIDENT-ELECT
Dan Sperber
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A Global Perspective on Voting Behavior
The founding membership is comprised of more than 1500 people around the world. A majority
hail from North America and Western Europe. Yet as this map shows, we had voter turnout from
every continent on Earth where humans reside.
This is a very important outcome for our first election as a
scientific society that strives to become globally representative
in its lifetime. We carefully engaged in member recruitment last
year to bring people together from as many nations as
possible. The data presented here comes from the IP
addresses used by voters—showing where they were
submitting their ballots from all over the planet.
Care was also taken to recruit members from a wide diversity
of research fields that are relevant to cultural evolution. This
was what enabled us to recruit candidates for officer positions
from a variety of academic disciplines. More on that below.
What we can feel proud of now is that our efforts have paid off.
We have successfully “seeded” a globally diverse community.
Now our task will be to nurture and grow it accordingly.
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A More Granular “Regional” Picture
Zoom into the two major regions where most of our members reside and you’ll see that we still
have an impressive spread of geographies. These maps show voter response within the United
States and for many countries of Europe.
I am sharing these maps to convey that we have an engaged membership representing a
considerable amount of cultural diversity in their locations. All of you live and work in communities
that capture the spread from rural midwestern towns in the US to mountain cities across eastern
Europe.
Here you can see that respondents
cast their ballots all over the country in
the United States.
Our hope is to see members “self-
organize” into interest groups around
projects and locations. What this map
shows is that many locales are within
reach on this particular continent.
Similarly, we can see that much of
Europe is accessible by our active
members. This map shows that
nearly every country throughout the
region has at least one person who
cast a vote in the inaugural election.
Imagine what we can achieve
together as we merge intellectual
contributions with the cultural
landscapes our members have direct
access to.
These impressions are important because the field of cultural evolution has so much to offer. When
we gathered the “grand challenges” for the field from all of you last fall, it was clear that a variety of
theoretical concerns need to be addressed; many practical applications can be developed to help
societies function better; and institutional changes will be needed across the academic and
practitioner landscapes to achieve these things. We are off to a great start with this election.
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Results for Each Candidate Position
Now for the results in each race. This section explains how each officer position was decided and
offers brief commentary about how the outcomes align with our diversity mandate to achieve
gender equality in the governing body, represent a diversity of academic fields, include
perspectives from different regions of the world, and capture the spectrum of needs from early to
late-stage career.
Office of President
The two candidates running for this position were Peter J. Richerson and Dan Sperber. A special
condition was held that the runner up would become the “president-elect” to ensure continuity of
leadership in this fledgling stage for the society.
As the results show, Pete Richerson is the clear winner. We are delighted to have him as the first
CES President—as he is a recognized leader in the field whose guidance and scholarship has been
central to the advances made in recent decades.
It is equally delightful to have Dan Sperber as the President-Elect since his work on “cultural
attractors” provides a counterweight to the “dual inheritance” theory that Pete helped formulate.
Both are thoughtful diplomats, critical scholars, and beloved mentors for a generation of students
who have gone on to shape the field in many important ways themselves.
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Office of Secretary
The two candidates running for this position were Fiona Jordan and Peter Peregrine.
The position will be taken by Fiona Jordan. She is a cultural evolutionary anthropologist at the
University of Bristol who studies kinship, social organization, and language. In her position
statement for the election, Fiona expressed her vision to promote interdisciplinary thinking for the
society and help researchers from related fields to find a proper home in this community.
Office of Treasurer
The two candidates running for this position were Tanya Broesch and Alex Mesoudi.
The position will be taken by Alex Mesoudi. His research has contributed to the development for
integrative frameworks that bring synthesis to the social sciences. As this is a major “grand
challenge” identified by the membership (knowledge synthesis), it is lovely to have him serve in this
capacity for the society.
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Member Position 1 :: Male from Asia Region
The two candidates running for this position were Kenichi Aoki and Masanori Takezawa.
It was a close race with Kenichi Aoki coming out in the lead position. Kenichi’s research focuses on
mathematical modeling for gene-culture coevolution, informed by his training in biological
anthropology and population genetics. We are delighted to have him representing the Asia Region
to help build bridges between East and West where much cross-cultural learning awaits.
Member Position 2 :: Male or Female from India Region
The two candidates running for this position were Sumitava Mukherjee and Shruti Tewari.
This was also a close race with Sumitava coming out in the lead. His research focuses on human
judgment and decision-making, which provides a bridge to the cognitive and behavioral sciences.
In his statement for the ballot, Sumitava expressed a desire to help the society formulate a clear
agenda for member engagement, collaborative research, and outreach to practitioners.
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Member Position 3 :: Female from Africa Region
This was a one candidate race with Purity Kiura on the ballot.
We are delighted to have her on board representing
this vital region of the world. Purity is Director of
Museums, Sites, and Monuments at the National
Museum of Kenya.
She has a vision to make cultural evolution widely
visible (and available) to students across the African
continent. With so much important research taking
place at field sites throughout the region, there is
great opportunity to engage local communities and
get them directly involved.
Member Position 4 :: Female from Open Regions
This was also a one candidate race with Michelle Gelfand on the ballot.
Michelle has been involved with the society since
its inception—at a workshop she co-hosted at
College Park, Maryland in the spring of 2015.
She is a professor of cross-cultural psychology
who studies the strength of social norm
adherence in diverse cultural settings. We are
delighted to have her representing the vision for
innovative, cross-cutting research across fields.
Michelle has great leadership experience in other
societies and routinely collaborates with partners
around the world.
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Member Position 5 :: Male from Open Regions
The two candidates running for this position were Russell Gray and Andrew Whiten.
The position will be taken by Russell Gray. He is a professor at the Max Planck Institute in Jena,
Germany where he studies language evolution and animal cognition—including extensive work with
the social behavior of crows. Russell brings a strong passion for diversity to the society.
Member Position 6 :: Female from Open Regions
This was another one candidate position with Monique Borgerhoff Mulder on the ballot.
Monique is a human behavioral ecologist with
a special interest in demographics, health,
and resource management.
Her vision for the society is to actively
promote a strong emphasis on field work
across diverse contexts, a rigorous
comparative approach across theories and
methods, and to achieve a truly international
representation for the membership.
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Member Position 7 :: Male from Open Regions
The two candidates running for this position were Quentin Atkinson and Rob Boyd.
The position will be filled by Rob Boyd. He is a long-time collaborator with our new president, Pete
Richerson, with a strong research focus on cultural transmission using the framework of Darwinian
evolution. Rob’s vision for the society is that it be a venue for inclusive, interdisciplinary research on
the evolution of human behavior. A major concern he has is that the field can be defined too
narrowly—failing to forge partnerships with the historical sciences and humanities.
Member Position 8 :: Female from Open Regions
The two candidates running for this position were Laurel Fogarty and Michelle Kline.
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The position will go to Michelle Kline. She is a post-doctoral researcher at Arizona State University
who specializes in the study of social learning, cultural transmission, and innovation. Michelle sees
the interdisciplinary nature of cultural evolution as one of its greatest strengths. Her vision for the
society is to create a truly inclusive community that works across disciplinary boundaries and
brings synthesis to the vast knowledge that already exists across the academy.
Male Student Representative
The two candidates running for this position were Joshua Conrad Jackson and Ian MacDonald.
The position will be filled by Joshua Jackson. He is an incoming doctoral student at the University
of North Carolina who works across the cognitive and evolutionary sciences to study religion,
group behavior, and motivation. Joshua is passionate about student engagement and online
science communication. He will advocate for cross-disciplinary synthesis and diversity in the
community.
Female Student Representative
The two candidates running for this position were Jessica Borushok and Nicole Wen.
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The position will be filled by Nicole Wen. She studies the cognitive and social development of
children in diverse cultural settings. Nicole shares the vision of many others here for an inclusive
and diverse membership. In her statement, she expressed the goal of broadening the intellectual
scope of the society and to encourage the involvement of students and early career scientists.
On Diversity and Next Steps
A great amount of care was taken to meet our diversity criteria. We hope you are as pleased as we
on the CES Election Committee are with the outcome of this election. The large number of
member positions are intended to allow for three vital dimensions of diversity:
1. Seed the leadership with ambassadors from regions of the world. This is why we
organized the ballot around Africa, Asia, and India to guarantee representation from these
important geographies. We also desired to have a representative from Latin America. That
is a goal for the next phase of development as we expand our geographic scope.
2. Cast a wide net with respect to intellectual domains. A strong signal has come
through that broad inclusivity and knowledge diversity are what makes this field strong.
Having eight member positions enables us to begin sampling among the diversity that is
already present in our membership—and to assist in its expansion.
3. Ensure that gender equality is represented. All the research shows that few scientific
societies succeed at elevating women to equal representation in their leadership. We saw
this unique opportunity to start with the composition we want for the future.
Now that these diversity criteria have been met, it is time to begin the formal work of adopting
bylaws, planning for the first CES conference in 2017, launching our web presence, designing a
peer-review journal tailored to our field, and ongoing discussions about educational and research
agendas now that we can move forward together.
It is truly an exciting time to be in the field of cultural evolutionary studies!
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