Michael D. Gurven is an American anthropologist and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is co-founder and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life History Project, a long-running biomedical and anthropological study of the Tsimane people of the Bolivian Amazon. His research integrates biodemography, human biology, and evolutionary anthropology to study human life history, aging, cardiovascular health, the evolution of cooperation, and health effects of modernization. Gurven's findings on low rates of chronic diseases among the Tsimane and the evolutionary roots of human longevity have received widespread attention in outlets such as BBC News, Aeon, The Washington Post, and Scientific American. He is the author of Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer (Princeton University Press, 2025), which challenges notions of short ancestral lifespans and has been reviewed in Business Insider., Gizmodo., and Science..
Early life and education
Gurven earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in anthropology and mathematics from Pennsylvania State University in 1996. He completed his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 2000; his doctoral dissertation was titled To Give and Give Not: The Evolutionary Ecology of Hunter-Gatherer Food Transfers. His primary Ph.D. advisor was Kim Hill. Early fieldwork and comparative research included work with the Ache, Hiwi, and Tsimane peoples.
Academic career
Gurven joined the UCSB Department of Anthropology as an assistant professor in 2001 and received tenure in 2007. He was promoted to full professor in 2011 and was named Distinguished Professor in 2024. He chaired the Integrative Anthropological Sciences unit from its inauguration in 2008 through 2022. He has served as Associate Director of the Broom Center for Demography and is core faculty in UCSB's Center for Aging and Longevity, and he is principal investigator on multiple NSF and NIH grants supporting work in demography, cardiology, infectious disease, and evolutionary medicine.
Research
Gurven is co-founder and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life History Project (since c.2002), which follows thousands of Tsimane individuals and produces longitudinal biomedical and demographic data. Major findings include:
- Very low levels of coronary atherosclerosis among the Tsimane compared with many industrialized populations.
- Rapidly declining average body temperature in a tropical human population (2004–2018).
- Parasite infection patterns with measurable effects on fertility, immune function, and cardiovascular risk factors.
- Minimal evidence for a universal mid-life happiness dip in non-industrial populations.
- Evidence for slower brain aging and low arterial stiffness among elderly Tsimane.
Awards and honours
- Harold J. Plous Award for exceptional achievement in research, teaching and service, UC Santa Barbara (2004).
- Early Career Award, Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) (2010).
- Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2022).
Media and public engagement
Gurven has been featured in major outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Scientific American, Wired, BBC News, and Aeon, often discussing how insights from Indigenous populations can inform public health. He has been interviewed on NPR about cultural barriers to healthcare access among the Tsimane.
Selected publications
- Kaplan H., ..., Gurven M., Thomas, G. Coronary atherosclerosis in indigenous South American Tsimane. The Lancet. 2017;389(10080):1730–1739. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30752-3.
- Gurven M, Kaplan H. Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination. Population and Development Review. 2007;33(2):321–365. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x.
- Davison R, Gurven M. "The importance of elders: extending Hamilton's force of selection to include intergenerational transfers". PNAS. 2022;119(28):e2200073119. doi:10.1073/pnas.2200073119.
- Gurven M, Stieglitz J, Trumble B, Blackwell AD, Beheim B, Davis H, Hooper P, Kaplan H. "The Tsimane Health and Life History Project: Integrating anthropology and biomedicine". Evolutionary Anthropology. 2017;26(2):54–73. doi:10.1002/evan.21515.
- Gurven M, Sarrieddine A, Lea A. "Health Disparities Among Indigenous Peoples". Annual Review of Anthropology. 2024;53:55–73. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-041222-101445.
Books
- Gurven, Michael D. Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer. Princeton University Press, 2025.
See also
References
External links
- Gurven Lab – UCSB
- Michael D. Gurven – CV
- To Give and Give Not – Google Books
- Seven Decades – Princeton University Press
Category:American anthropologists Category:University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Category:University of New Mexico alumni Category:Pennsylvania State University alumni Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Nick Feamster is an American computer scientist and the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, where he was the inaugural director of the Center for Data and Computing, later the Data Science Institute, and co-directs the Internet Innovation Initiative, which focuses on AI's impact on policy and economics. He is known for significant contributions to software-defined networking (SDN), early work in applying machine learning to network security and performance, broadband Internet measurement, Internet technology policy, and online education.
Early life and education
Feamster grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, showing an early interest in technology through participation in Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth, one of the first online education initiatives, where he completed AP calculus and physics in middle school.
He earned his S.B. (2000) and M.Eng. (2001) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and his Ph.D. (2005) in Computer Science, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral dissertation, Proactive Techniques for Correct and Predictable Internet Routing, received honorable mention for the George M. Sprowls Award. His doctoral advisor was Hari Balakrishnan.
Career
Industry work
Feamster was an early software engineer at LookSmart, where he developed the company's first web crawler, later acquired by AltaVista. He contributed to network security at Damballa, co-inventing botnet-detection technology covered by patents. He co-founded NetMicroscope, a company applying AI to network service management. He also worked on video transcoding at Hewlett-Packard, voice-over-IP technologies at Bell Laboratories, DNS technology at Verisign, and network management and fault diagnosis at Thomson.
In 2019, his research supported a Wall Street Journal investigation into Internet speed and streaming video quality.
Academic positions
Since 2019, Feamster has been Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, directing the Network Operations and Internet Security Lab and co-directing the Internet Innovation Initiative. After a 2005 postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, he joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor, becoming full professor in 2014. In 2015, he returned to Princeton as Professor of Computer Science, having served as Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP).
Personal life
Feamster is an avid long-distance runner, having completed over 20 marathons, including Boston and New York, and earning three silver medals at the Comrades Marathon. He holds the fastest known time for an unsupported end-to-end run on the Chicago Lakefront Trail. He serves on the official pace team for the Chicago Marathon. He is also a musician who writes, produces, and performs his own tracks.
Research and contributions
Software-defined networking
Feamster is noted for significant contributions to SDN, with influential papers including The Case for Separating Routing from Routers (2004) and The Road to SDN (2014). His Router Configuration Checker (rcc) won the Best Paper Award at USENIX NSDI 2005 and laid the foundation for formal verification of network configurations. He teaches SDN through a Coursera course.
Internet measurement
Feamster's work on broadband Internet measurement includes the BISmark project, the world's first open-source router-based Internet speed test, deployed in over 30 countries. BISmark informed the FCC's Measuring Broadband America initiative and was extended through projects like PEERING and Transit Portal.
Machine learning for networking
Feamster made early contributions to applying machine learning to networking, including spam and botnet detection. His WISE system, developed with students, was deployed at Google for network scenario evaluation. Recent work includes NetDiffusion and NetSSM, applying generative AI to network management.
Network security
Feamster's security contributions include machine learning-based spam and botnet detection, covered by patents. He co-invented Oblivious DNS, deployed by Apple and Cloudflare to enhance privacy.
Online education
Feamster co-authored the textbook Computer Networks with Andrew Tanenbaum. He created one of the first MOOCs, which focused on SDN, for Coursera in 2013. He was one of four founding instructors for Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program, teaching computer networking, with course videos available on YouTube.
Technology policy
Feamster is an active contributor to Internet policy, having served as Princeton's CITP director and testifying before the FCC on broadband and net neutrality. He co-edited reports for the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) and advocated for ethics in computer science education.
Internet censorship and online speech
Feamster's early work on Infranet (2002) addressed Internet censorship circumvention. He founded the Workshop on Free and Open Communication on the Internet (FOCI) in 2011. He also teaches a course on censorship and online speech.
Legal technical expert
Feamster has served as a technical expert witness in litigation for many cases, and has testified in federal court on many cases involving a variety of issues, including copyright, patents, trade secrets, and other issues relating to security and privacy, including Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications (2019) and Splunk Inc. v. Cribl, Inc. (2021).
Awards and honors
- PECASE for cybersecurity contributions (2007)
- ACM Fellow (2016)
- ACM SIGCOMM Rising Star Award (2010)
- Technology Review TR35 Innovator Under 35 (2010)
- Sloan Research Fellowship (2009)
- NSF CAREER Award (2007)
- Best Paper Award, ACM SIGCOMM (2006) for network-level behavior of spammers
- USENIX NSDI Test of Time Award (2015) for SDN contributions
- ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference Test of Time Award (2025) for PEERING and Transit Portal
References
External links
Category:American computer scientists Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:Georgia Tech faculty Category:Princeton University faculty Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:American long-distance runners Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Ralph Micheal Leonard also known as Ralph Leonard (born May 9, 1996) is an international British Nigerian journalist, film critic, author, and commentator.
He won the Jom Charity Award and in 2024 he won the Yessiey Awards for best author and commentator.
Early life
Ralph Leonard was born on 9 May 1996 in Eastbourne, United Kingdom to Mabel Oboh, a Nigerian/British broadcaster, actress, film producer, and politician, and Gary Leonard, a former British diplomat. He started his basic education in Nigeria before finishing his schooling in the United Kingdom. He attended Gorse Ride and Parklane primary schools, followed by Little Heath Secondary School in England. He pursued higher education in Law for one year at Swansea University, Wales, UK, before transitioning to Media Studies at Bracknell & Wokingham College, England, UK, where he graduated in 2018.
Career
Ralph Leonard, is a conservative Marxist ideologist, an author of international politics, religion, culture, sex, literature, and humanism, and has published some articles in contemporary discussions.
He is the author of the 'Letters on Liberty pamphlet', 'Unshackling Intimacy', 'And Israel: A settler-colonial State? A clarification'. He is a regular Commentator on Sublation Media. Leonard began his professional journalism career in 2018. His works have appeared in UnHerd, The Atlantic, The Daily Telegraph, Sublation Magazine, New Statesman, openDemocracy, Daily Mail, Evening Standard,The Freethinker (journal), Muck Rack, Quillette.
In 2022, He was listed as the 5th most powerful young man in Africa by NBTlive and was named among the top 10 influential people in the diaspora by yessiey magazine. In 2023, He was listed by Nation newspaper among three Nigerian journalists making significant strides in the global media world. and in 2024 Legit.ng mentioned him among the Top 4 remarkable Africans.
Ralph has been described as a secular humanist and defender of media freedom and journalist protection, and an advocate against, human trafficking and social injustice.
Awards and recognitions
In 2020, He was nominated and won Jom Charity Award for his article in Daily Mail about the murder of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, USA and in 2024 he won the Yessiey Awards for best author and commentator.
References
Category:Living people Category:Nigerian journalists Category:British journalists Category:1996 births Category:Daily Mail journalists Category:British male writers Category:20th-century Nigerian writers Category:20th-century journalists Category:Nigerian writers Category:Nigerian critics Category:People from Edo State
The Leader of the Opposition () is an elected member of the Bagmati Provincial Assembly who leads the official opposition in the assembly. This role is held by the parliamentary party leader of the provincial assembly's second-largest political party, which has the most seats after the governing party, and is responsible for representing the opposition and holding the government accountable in the legislature. The post is held by Shalikram Jamkattel.
Qualification
The person selected as the leader of the opposition party (parliamentary party) must be remembered as follows:
(1) The party with the most members in the Provincial Assembly, excluding the party that forms or supports the formation of the Council of Ministers.
(2) If there are equal members from more than one party in the Provincial Assembly, the party mutually agreed upon by those parties as their representative.
(3) If mutual agreement as per subsection (2) is not reached, the party with the most members in the Provincial Assembly, excluding the party that forms or supports the formation of the Council of Ministers, and has written consent from the majority of members, will select the leader of the opposition party.
(4) If written consent as per subsection (3) is not provided, or if there is no party in the Provincial Assembly with at least ten percent or more members, excluding the party that forms or supports the formation of the Council of Ministers, the Speaker of the Provincial Assembly will designate a party for the Assembly.
(5) If a person is already the leader of the opposition party and, for any reason, a party gains more than ten percent of the members in the Provincial Assembly and becomes the party with the most members, that party will be considered.
(6) For the purpose of this section, the concerned party or member must provide mutual agreement as per subsection (2) within fifteen days from the date of the first session of the Provincial Assembly after the election of its members, and if mutual agreement is not reached, written consent as per subsection (3) must be provided within fifteen days
List of leaders of the opposition
Portrait |
Name |
Term of office |
Assembly (election) |
Chief Minister's |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Indra Bahadur Baniya |
February 8, 2018 |
April 6, 2021 |
1st |
|
2 |
|
Shalikram Jamkattel |
April 6, 2021 |
October 27, 2021 |
|
3 |
Astalaxmi Shakya |
October 27, 2021 |
September 17, 2022 |
||
4 |
Bahadur Singh Lama |
January 9, 2023 |
April 9, 2023 |
2nd |
|
5 |
|
Jagannath Thapaliya |
April 9, 2023 |
March 6, 2024 |
|
(4) |
Bahadur Singh Lama |
March 6, 2024 |
July 24, 2024 |
||
(2) |
|
Shalikram Jamkattel |
July 24, 2024 |
Incumbent |
|
See also
- Leader of the Opposition in the Koshi Provincial Assembly
Notes
References
Bagmati Provincial Assembly