Ruth MaceFBA (born 9 October 1961) is a Britishanthropologist,biologist, and academic. She specialises in theevolutionary ecology of humandemography andlife history, andphylogenetic approaches toculture andlanguage evolution. Since 2004, she has beenProfessor ofEvolutionary Anthropology atUniversity College London.^[1][2]

Mace was born on 9 October 1961 in London, England to David Mace and Angela Mace. She was educated atSouth Hampstead High School, an all-girlsprivate school inSouth Hampstead, London, and atWestminster School, an independent school within the precincts ofWestminster Abbey that has a mixed-sexsixth form. She studiedzoology atWadham College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1983 and a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1987.^[1] Herdoctoral thesis was titled "The dawn chorus: Behavioural organisation in the great tit (Parus major)".^[3]

Having completed her doctorate, Mace began her academic career as aresearch fellow atImperial College London; she held aNERCPostdoctoral Fellowship.^[4] Then, from 1989 to 1991, she was a lecturer in the School ofDevelopment Studies at theUniversity of East Anglia.^[1][4]

In 1991, Mace moved to the Department of Anthropology ofUniversity College London: she was aRoyal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer from 1991 to 1999, andReader in Human Evolutionary Ecology from 1999 to 2004.^[4] In 1994, having met Mark Pagel at University College, the two co-authored "The Comparative Method in Anthropology", that used phylogenetic methods to analyse human cultures, pioneering a new field of science — using evolutionary trees, or phylogenies, in anthropology, to explain human behaviour.^[5]

In 2004, she was appointedProfessor of Evolutionary Anthropology.^[1] From 2005 to 2010, she was also Editor-in-Chief ofEvolution and Human Behavior.^[1] From 2018, she was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Evolutionary Human Sciences.^[6] Since 2010, she has served as Head ofBiological Anthropology at University College London.^[4]

Mace'spartner isMark Pagel, professor ofEvolutionary Biology at the University of Reading. Together they have two sons.^[1]

In 2003, Mace gave the Curl Lecture, a prize lectureship of theRoyal Anthropological Institute.^[7] In 2008, she was elected aFellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom'snational academy for the humanities and the social sciences.^[8]

• Milner-Gulland, E. J.; Mace, Ruth (1998).Conservation of Biological Resources: with case studies contributed by other authors. Oxford: Blackwell Science.ISBN 978-0865427389.
• Mace, Ruth; Holden, Clare J.; Shennan, Stephen, eds. (2005).The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach. London: UCL Press.ISBN 978-1844720996.
• Sear, Rebecca; Mace, Ruth (January 2008). "Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival".Evolution and Human Behavior.29 (1):1–18.doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.10.001.
• Gillian, Bentley; Mace, Ruth, eds. (2009).Substitute Parents: Biological and Social Perspectives on Alloparenting in Human Societies. New York: Berghahn Books.ISBN 978-1845451066.

• 1961 births
• 20th-century British anthropologists
• 21st-century British anthropologists
• 20th-century British biologists
• 21st-century British biologists
• 20th-century British writers
• 21st-century British writers
• 20th-century British women writers
• 21st-century British women writers
• 20th-century British women scientists
• 21st-century British women scientists
• Academics of Imperial College London
• Academics of the University of East Anglia
• Academics of University College London
• Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford
• British women biologists
• British evolutionary biologists
• Fellows of the British Academy
• Human evolution theorists
• Living people
• People educated at South Hampstead High School
• People educated at Westminster School, London
• Physical anthropologists
• Scientists from London
• British women anthropologists

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