Bruce Rawlings • Postdoctoral Researcher • Evolution, Variation and Ontogeny of Learning Lab • Department of Psychology • The University of Texas at Austin
Describe your research to a kid or a grandmother.
I try to understand why humans have such advanced technology as smartphones, schools, biomedicine, and live all over the planet, while our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, are refined to a few places in Africa and have used the same tools for thousands of years. To do this, I study humans' and chimpanzees' ability to create new technology, and to learn it from others.
If you had a car sticker or door poster, what would it say?
If I could make one up it would be: I like chimpanzees slightly more than I like children (and I'm a parent).
But I really like "Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown." by Anthony Bourdain. It perfectly captures why I love to travel.
Alternate career?
Sensible-ish answer: a football (soccer) player. I was decent as a youngster.
Dream-world answer: a travel writer. I'd love to be paid to try new things in new places.
Piece of advice to a newly-minted undergraduate student.
Academia is a strange career. You do years and years of training: masters degrees, PhDs, postdocs etc., and in the end the earnings can be modest compared to say industry. Your job involves your work being constantly evaluated by really really smart people which is daunting and can be tough. But, you are paid to learn about whatever you want and you directly contribute to humans' knowledge about the world. That's rare and cool.
What has your research taught you about the world around us?
People vary so much around the world, but in every culture learning from others is fundamental to functioning in society.