Shannon Tushingham is the Irvine Chair and Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. She is an anthropological archaeologist who employs transdisciplinary science, evolutionary ecology frameworks, and collaborative community-based methods to better understand deep time human-environmental dynamics, human autonomy, and decision-making in the past, present, and future. She collaborates with Indigenous and local communities in western North America and Bhutan on studies designed to improve our understanding of the past with an eye on developing modern solutions to improve biodiversity, community health, and the preservation of cultural heritage.
Recent research investigates cultural niche construction, ancestral food and storage systems, the evolution of psychoactive plant use, and equity and multivocality in STEM. She is interested in leveraging the Academy as a leader in research that explicitly integrates Native and Western science approaches. Current studies investigate the historical ecology and development of Indigenous resource extraction systems, foodways, and traditional ecological knowledge and stewardship practices (e.g., cultural burning, cultivation or “tending” of certain plants and animals, reciprocal exchange systems, shell bead money, sophisticated storage systems, etc.), and how we might apply this knowledge to develop real world conservation solutions.
