Thomas McDade

Associate Professor (Ph.D. Emory 1999)
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Reseasch

Director, Laboratory for Human Biology Research

1810 Hinman Avenue, Room #A62
(847) 467-4304
t-mcdade@northwestern.edu

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS: Human Biology; Biocultural Perspectives on Health and Human Development; Medical Anthropology and Global Health; Ecological immunology; Stress; Health Disparities; Laboratory Methods.

Thom McDade is a biological anthropologist specializing in human population biology. His work is primarily concerned with the dynamic interrelationships among biology, culture, and individual psychosocial environments, with an emphasis on stress and the ecology of immune function. The development and application of minimally-invasive methods for integrating physiological measures into population-based research is also a major area of interest. Prior research in Samoa, and ongoing research in Bolivia, investigates how local cultural transitions associated with globalization affect child/adolescent health, while research in the Philippines is exploring the long term developmental consequences of early nutritional and pathogenic environments. He is currently applying conceptual and methodological tools from this work to US-based research on stress and health, with an emphasis on the potential contribution of stress to health disparities. Dr. McDade is also a Director of the Laboratory for Human Biology Research, and associate director of Cells to Society (C2S): Center on Social Disparities and Health. McDade's work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, The National Institute of Health, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and he was a 2002 recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

RECENT COURSES TAUGHT

1. 101 – Freshman Seminar – Human Nature: Biological and Cultural Perspectives
2. 306 – Evolution of Life Histories
3. 386 – Methods in Human Biology Research
4. 314 – Human Growth & Development

RECENT PUBLICATIONS/PRESENTATIONS/CONFERENCES

2008 McDade, T.W., Reyes-Garcia, V., Tanner, S., Huanca, T., and

W.R. Leonard. Maintenance versus growth: Investigating the costs

of immune activation among children in lowland Bolivia. American

Journal of Physical Anthropology 136:478-484.

2007 McDade, T.W., Reyes-Garcia, V., Blackinton, P., Tanner, S.,

Huanca, T., and W. R. Leonard. Maternal ethnobotanical knowledge is

associated with multiple measures of child health in the Bolivian

Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

104: 6134-6139.

2007 McDade, T.W., Williams, S. and J. J. Snodgrass. What a drop can do:

Dried blood spots as a minimally-invasive method for integrating

biomarkers into population-based research. Demography 44:899-925.

2006 McDade, T.W., Hawkley, L. C. and J. T. Cacioppo. Psychosocial

and behavioral predictors of inflammation in middle-age and older adults:

The Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study.

Psychosomatic Medicine 68: 376-381.

2006 McDade. T. W., Hawkley, L.C. and J.T. Cacioppo. Psychosocial and

behavioral predictors of inflammation in middle-age and older adults: The Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study. Psychosomatic Medicine 68: 376-81.

2005 McDade, T.W., Leonard, W.R., Burhop, J., Reyes-García, V., Vadez,

V., Huanca, T. and R.A. Godoy . Predictors of C-reactive protein in Tsimane’ 2-15 year-olds in lowland Bolivia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 128: 906-913.

2005 McDade, T.W.. The ecologies of human immune function. Annual

Review of Anthropology.34: 495-521.

2005 McDade, T.W.. Life history, maintenance, and the early origins of

immune function. American Journal of Human Biology 17: 81-94.

2005 McKenna, J.J. and T.W. McDade. Why Babies Should Never Sleep

Alone: A Review of the Cosleeping Controversy in Relationship to SIDS, Bedsharing and Breast Feeding. Pediatric Respiratory Review 6: 134-152.

2004 McDade, T.W., Burhop, J., and J. Dohnal. High sensitivity enzyme

immunoassay for C-reactive protein in dried blood spots. Clinical Chemistry 50: 652-654.

2004 McDade, T.W., Kuzawa, C., Adair, L.S., and M. Beck. Prenatal and

early postnatal environments are significant predictors of IgE concentration in Filipino adolescents. Clinical and Experimental Allergy 34: 44-50.

2004 McDade, TW and CM Worthman. Socialization ambiguity in Samoan

adolescents: A new model for research in human development and stress in the context of culture change. Journal of Research in Adolescence 14: 49-72.

2003 McDade, T.W.. Life history theory and the immune system: Steps

toward a human ecological immunology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 46: 100-125.

2002 McDade, T.W. and B. Shell-Duncan . Whole blood collected on filter

paper provides a minimally-invasive method for assessing human transferrin receptor. Journal of Nutrition 132: 3760-3763.

2002 McDade, T.W. Status incongruity in Samoan youth: A biocultural

analysis of culture change, stress, and immune function. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 16: 123-150.

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