Ruth Mace

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| name = Ruth Mace

| honorific_suffix = FBA

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=y|1961|10|09}}

| birth_place = London, England

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| occupation = Anthropologist

| title = Professor of evolutionary anthropology

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| spouse = Mark Pagel

| children = 2

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| discipline = Anthropology

| sub_discipline = Evolutionary anthropology
Phylogenetic approaches

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| education = South Hampstead High School
Westminster School

| alma_mater = Wadham College, Oxford

| thesis_title = The dawn chorus: Behavioural organisation in the great tit (Parus major)

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| thesis_year = 1987

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| workplaces = Imperial College London
University of East Anglia
University College London

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Ruth Mace FBA (born 9 October 1961) is a British anthropologist, biologist, and academic. She specialises in the evolutionary ecology of human demography and life history, and phylogenetic approaches to culture and language evolution. Since 2004, she has been Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at University College London.{{cite web|title=MACE, Prof. Ruth|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U249697|website=Who's Who 2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=18 January 2017|date=November 2016}}{{cite web|title=Prof Ruth Mace|url=http://www.cecd.ucl.ac.uk/people/?go1=12|website=AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity|publisher=University College London|access-date=18 January 2017}}

Early life and education

Mace was born on 9 October 1961 in London, England to David Mace and Angela Mace. She was educated at South Hampstead High School, an all-girls private school in South Hampstead, London, and at Westminster School, an independent school within the precincts of Westminster Abbey that has a mixed-sex sixth form. She studied zoology at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1983 and a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1987. Her doctoral thesis was titled "The dawn chorus: Behavioural organisation in the great tit (Parus major)".{{cite thesis|last1=Mace|first1=R. H.|title=The dawn chorus: Behavioural organisation in the great tit (Parus major)|url=http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.382646|website=E-Thesis Online Service|publisher=The British Library Board|access-date=18 January 2017|year=1987|type=Ph.D}}

Academic career

Having completed her doctorate, Mace began her academic career as a research fellow at Imperial College London; she held a NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship.{{cite web|title=Prof. Ruth Helen Mace|url=http://www.academia-net.org/profil/prof-ruth-helen-mace/1135290|website=AcademiaNet|access-date=18 January 2017}} Then, from 1989 to 1991, she was a lecturer in the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia.

In 1991, Mace moved to the Department of Anthropology of University College London: she was a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer from 1991 to 1999, and Reader in Human Evolutionary Ecology from 1999 to 2004. In 1994, having met Mark Pagel at University College, the two co-authored "The Comparative Method in Anthropology", that used phylogenetic methods to analyse human cultures, pioneering a new field of science — using evolutionary trees, or phylogenies, in anthropology, to explain human behaviour.{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1038/510458a| pmid=24965634| bibcode=2014Natur.510..458S|journal = Nature| volume = 160| issue = 510| pages = 458–460| date=26 June 2014| last1 = Smith | first1 = Kerri|title = Love in the lab: Close collaborators| doi-access = free}}

In 2004, she was appointed Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology. From 2005 to 2010, she was also Editor-in-Chief of Evolution and Human Behavior. From 2018, she was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Evolutionary Human Sciences.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences|title=Evolutionary Human Sciences|website=Cambridge Core|language=en|access-date=2019-08-04}} Since 2010, she has served as Head of Biological Anthropology at University College London.

Personal life

Mace's partner is Mark Pagel, professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Reading. Together they have two sons.

Honours

In 2003, Mace gave the Curl Lecture, a prize lectureship of the Royal Anthropological Institute.{{cite web|title=Curl Lectureship Prior Recipients|url=https://www.therai.org.uk/awards/honours-prior-recipients/curl-lectureship-prior-recipients|publisher=Royal Anthropological Institute|access-date=18 January 2017}} In 2008, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.{{cite web|title=Professor Ruth Mace|url=http://www.britac.ac.uk/users/professor-ruth-mace|website=britac.ac.uk|publisher=The British Academy|access-date=18 January 2017}}

Selected works

{{cite book |last1=Milner-Gulland |first1=E. J. |last2=Mace |first2=Ruth |title=Conservation of Biological Resources: with case studies contributed by other authors |date=1998 |publisher=Blackwell Science |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0865427389}}
{{cite book |editor1-last=Mace |editor1-first=Ruth |editor2-last=Holden |editor2-first=Clare J. |editor3-last=Shennan |editor3-first=Stephen |title=The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach |date=2005 |publisher=UCL Press |location=London |isbn=978-1844720996}}
{{cite journal |last1=Sear |first1=Rebecca |author1-link= Rebecca Sear |last2=Mace |first2=Ruth |title=Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival |journal=Evolution and Human Behavior |date=January 2008 |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=1–18 |doi=10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.10.001}}
{{cite book |editor1-last=Gillian |editor1-first=Bentley |editor2-last=Mace |editor2-first=Ruth |title=Substitute Parents: Biological and Social Perspectives on Alloparenting in Human Societies |date=2009 |publisher=Berghahn Books |location=New York |isbn=978-1845451066}}