Research interests

Évolution culturelle
Cooperation
Social norms
Individual decision-making

Biography

Minhua Yan is an evolutionary anthropologist. She received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University and joined IAST as a research fellow in 2023. Her research addresses the conditions for and impacts of key human adaptations such as cultural evolution and large-scale high-stakes cooperation. Specifically, Minhua Yan has studied how social norms operate and how they change. Her research methods include mathematical models, fieldwork with the Derung in Yunnan, China, and online surveys in industrialized societies.