Ruth Mace is an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist. Since 2004, she has been Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at University College London. She specialises in the evolutionary ecology of human demography and life history, and phylogenetic approaches to culture and language evolution. She worked on topics, such as evolutionary demography and life history, particularly empirical studies focussing on rural African and Sino-Tibetan populations. She has also been at the forefront of phylogenetic approaches to culture and language evolution, including comparative methods for testing cross-cultural hypotheses, and understanding the origins of kinship, family and social systems. In addition, she has worked on issues of cooperation and competition, within families and within wider groups, as well as cultural transmission and the establishment of social norms. She is the author of “The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach” and “Substitute Parents: Biological and Social Perspectives on Alloparenting in Human Societies” among others, and of countless articles.