Claudia R. Valeggia Honored with Presidential Early Career Award

Claudia R. Valeggia, Associate Professor of Anthropology, has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The award, awarded by a panel involving officials from 16 different federal departments, is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Valeggia studies the interplay between human reproductive biology and culture. Some of the topics she has explored are the determinants of the return to postpartum fecundity, the variation in reproductive hormonal levels within and between women in relation to environmental variables, growth and development patterns in infants and children, and variation in male and female life history in populations experiencing drastic lifestyle changes.