Robert Boyd has written widely on evolutionary theory, focusing especially on the evolution of cooperation and the role of culture in human evolution. His book Culture and the Evolutionary Process received the J. I. Staley Prize, and he has also published numerous articles in scientific journals and edited volumes. Boyd is currently the Origins Professor in the School of Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.

Silk received her PhD from UC Davis in 1981, and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Altmann’s lab at the University of Chicago. She then I joined the Department of Anthropology at Emory University. Silk moved to UCLA in 1986, where she remained until 2012. At UCLA, she was a founding member of the Center of Behavior, Evolution, and Culture and served as department chair for six years. Silk is interested in questions that explicitly link studies of nonhuman primates to humans. Experimental work she conducts with chimpanzees and children focuses on the phylogenetic origins and ontogenetic development of prosocial preferences.