DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Sharmi is broadly interested in how the social environment shapes life history events, reproductive strategies, and nutritional phenotypes in wild animals. Originally from Kolkata, India, Sharmi received her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2023. Her dissertation examined the causes and consequences of individual variation in dispersal decisions and male reproductive strategies in wild geladas. After completing her PhD, Sharmi was a postdoctoral fellow at Dr. Jason Kamilar’s lab at UMass Amherst, where she was examining the social microbiome of wild Kinda baboons at Kasanka National Park, Zambia. As a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University in Dr. Katie Amato’s lab, Sharmi will be investigating the nutritional phenotypes of wild primate species spread across different habitats, taking a systems biology approach to develop a unified model for primate nutrition. 

Sharmi is passionate about fieldwork, mentorship, open science, and increasing diversity and inclusivity in academia. She is also a member of the Animal Behavior Collective that aims to support undergraduate students in Animal Behavior research globally.