Paul W. Andrews

PAwndrews

Assistant Professor
Director, Evolutionary Ecology of Health Lab

I am an Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, but I have a checkered educational past. My bachelor's degree is in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Arizona, and I received my law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I then pursued a PhD in Biology at the University of New Mexico, after which I did postdoctoral work in evolutionary psychology (University of New Mexico) and in psychiatric and behavioural genetics (Virginia Commonwealth University). My primary research interest is to understand the evolution of depression (publications can be found here). Specifically, I study the role of depression as an evolved emotional response to complex problems and its function in promoting analysis of these problems. We are also currently studying the risk of relapse after discontinuing antidepressant medication, where we found evidence of antidepressants causing an increased risk of depression relapse compared to placebo treatments in depressed individuals. I also work on sexual infidelity, suicidal behaviour, and other mental health traits from an evolutionary perspective.  Click here to learn more about these research topics.