For two decades, Yale anthropologist Richard Bribiescas, a leading expert on human evolutionary biology, has collaborated with scholars at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland - the country's flagship research institution. Over that period, Bribiescas has worked alongside his friend and colleague Grazyna Jasienska, a professor of health sciences at the Jagiellonian University Medical College, on research concerning how human physiology responds to different environments.
In addition to producing pioneering research, their partnership has created opportunities for young researchers at Yale, where Bribiescas is the J. Clayton Stephenson/Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, the country's flagship research institution.
In recognition of this ongoing collaboration, Bribiescas was recently elected as a foreign member to the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, which convenes leading national and international scholars in six core academic areas. The honor acknowledges the value of international collaboration.
"Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas," said Bribiescas, who also has an affiliation with the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology in the FAS. "Scholars in other countries often have access to data and research sites unavailable in the United States.
"Grazyna and I have had success in sharing ideas in ways that have strengthened our work and created opportunities for our students and colleagues. I'm grateful for this honor in part because it recognizes the vital importance of these international partnerships."
Bribiescas's most notable research involves the evolutionary biology and endocrinology of human and comparative life histories, reproduction, aging, and metabolism.
He first met Jasienska while they were in the same graduate program at Harvard in the mid-1990s. Bribiescas's continuing research, Jasienska said, clearly meets the criteria for election to the academy, which are particularly demanding for foreign members because their work must specifically contribute to Polish science and academia.
