Department of Anthropology
429 University Museum
Bio
My research interests lie in understanding the ways in which ecological, sociopolitical, and economic environments become embodied through biocultural processes that extend across generations and how changes in those environments affect human health and people’s ability to meet their basic needs. I am particularly interested in uncertainty and precarity as they related to health and housing. I am a biocultural anthropologist with an active field and laboratory research program. I currently serve as the director of the Biocultural Anthropology Methods Laboratory (BAMLab) at Penn. My current research is situated in the community of Nuñoa located in the southern Peruvian Andes and employs both ethnographic and biological methodologies to examine the political ecology of health in a community undergoing rapid economic, nutritional, and environmental transition. I also have new research efforts in the U.S. examining the health impacts of housing insecurity and eviction as well as racial discrimination and birth outcomes.
Education
Ph.D. Anthropology, Northwestern University, 2017; MPH: Northwestern University, 2017; BA: Anthropology & Hispanic Studies, Columbia University, 2008.
Office Hours
Research Interests
Biological Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Global Health, Political Ecology, Social Inequalities in Health, Human Biology, Biocultural Approaches, Housing, Eviction, Climate Change, Water Insecurity, Growth, Infancy, Nutrition, Intestinal Permeability, Plasticity, Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, Political Economy of Health, Demography, Intergenerational Perspectives, High Altitude Adaptation, the Andes, Latin America, North America.
Selected Publications
Hoke, MK & Boen, CE. 2021. The Health Impacts of Eviction: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Social Science & Medicine, 273, 113742.
Hoke, MK & McCabe, KM. 2021. Malnutrition, Illness, Poverty, and Infant Growth: A Test of a Syndemic Hypothesis in Nuñoa, Peru. Social Science and Medicine, 113720.
Hoke, MK and Schell, LM. 2020. Doing Biocultural Anthropology: Continuity and Change. American Journal of Human Biology, e23471.
Hoke, MK. 2020. A Biocultural Examination of Home Food Production and Child Growth in Highland Peru. American Journal of Human Biology, e23438.
Schafrank, LA, Washabaugh, JR, & Hoke, MK. 2020 An Examination of Human Milk Composition Among High Altitude Peruvian Women. American Journal of Human Biology, e23412.
McDade, TW, Ryan, CP, Jones, MJ, Hoke, MK, Borja, J. Miller, GE, Kuzawa, CW, Kobor, MS. 2019. Genome-wide Analysis of DNA Methylation in Relation to Socioeconomic Status During Development and Early Adulthood. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 169(1), 3-11.
Hoke, MK & Leatherman, TL. 2018. Secular Trends in Growth in the High-Altitude District of Nuñoa, Peru 1964-2015. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 168:200-208.
Hoke, MK, McCabe, KM, Miller, AA, and McDade, TW. 2018. Validation of Endotoxin-Core Antibodies in Dried Blood Spots as a Measure of Environmental Enteropathy and Intestinal Permeability. American Journal of Human Biology. e23120. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23120.
Courses Taught
ANTH 143 Being Human: Biology, Culture, and Human Diversity
ANTH 180 From Ayahuasca to Zoloft: Anthropological Perspectives on Drugs and Drug Use
ANTH 244 Disease and Human Evolution
ANTH 249 Evolutionary Medicine
ANTH 359 Nutritional Anthropology
ANTH 378/578 The Biology of Inequality
ANTH 444 Human Growth and Development
ANTH 733 Colloquium: Food
Affiliations
Axilrod Faculty Fellow - Population Studies Center (PSC)