The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution

About Dr Nathalie GontierProf Andy LockProf Chris Sinha

Nathalie Gontier has a background in philosophy of science and comparative anthropology. Her research investigates how evolutionary theories develop in biology how they are applied to study symbolic (sociocultural and linguistic) evolution and how they are depicted in diagrams. She is the founding director of the Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab and she currently holds a research position at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon. Her work has been sponsored amongst others by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology the European Marie Curie actions the American Museum of Natural History and the John Templeton Foundation. Andy Lock was Professor Emeritus at the School of Psychology at Massey University New Zealand. With a background in zoology and developmental psychology his early research focused on the development of communication and language in infancy and early childhood. He was a pioneering researcher in language evolution and human symbolic evolution and was widely recognised for his work in a broad range of fields including indigenous psychologies social constructionism and therapeutic practice. He was also known for his innovative and early engagement with online learning and teaching through his establishment in the 1990s of The Virtual Faculty. Chris Sinha gained his BA in developmental psychology at the University of Sussex and his doctorate (cum laude) at the University of Utrecht. His research is in the relations between language cognition and culture in human development and evolution. Methodologically his research seeks to integrate cognitive linguistic with socio-cultural approaches to language and communication in the construction of a biocultural approach to human symbolic evolution. He is experienced in field experimental and observational methods in human communication and human development. He has published in disciplines including anthropology linguistics education evolutionary biology connection science as well as developmental and cultural psychology.