Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias

  • Research Fellow, Emmanuel College
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias

Contact

Connect

Location

  • Room F21 Main Zoology Building

About

I am a Research Fellow at the Evolutionary Ecology Group and at Emmanuel College. Previously, I completed my PhD at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of Zürich, and an MPhil at the Department of Archaeology in Cambridge.

Research

Broadly, I am interested on the ecological and social drivers of the diversity of ways in which humans live and have lived throughout our evolution. Moreover, how this diversity has shaped our genetic and cultural makeup as well as our similarities and differences with other animals.

To investigate these questions, I combine methods and data from population genetics, computational modelling, archaeology and field research among hunter-gatherers, mainly in the Republic of Congo.

Key Publications

Padilla-Iglesias, C., Xue, Z., Leonardi, M., Paijmans, J., Colucci, M., Hovhannisyan, A., Hallett, E., Scerri, E.M., Vinicius, L., Migliano, A.B. & Manica, A. Pan African model explains Homo sapiens’ morphological and genetic evolution. Preprint in BiorXiv.

Padilla-Iglesias, C., Blanco-Portillo, J., Pricop, B., Ioannidis, A., Bickel, B., Manica, A., Vinicius, L., & Migliano, A.B. (2024). Deep history of cultural and linguistic evolution among Central African hunter-gatherers. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1263–1275.

Padilla-Iglesias, C., Atmore, L. M., Olivero, J., Lupo, K., Manica, A., Arango Isaza, E., ... & Migliano, A. B. (2022). Population interconnectivity over the past 120,000 yearsexplains distribution and diversity of Central African hunter-gatherers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(21), e2113936119

Garg, K., Padilla-Iglesias, C., Ochoa, N. R., & Knight, V. B. (2021). Hunter-gatherer foraging networks promote information transmission. Royal Society OpenScience,.8,211324211324.

I supervise students for the Part IA Evolution and Behaviour module.