Paula Skye Tallman

Paula Skye Tallman

Classification: staff

Affiliation: Northwestern University Graduate School

Interests: Reading and running around the Amazon.

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Background Info

Born in New Orleans and raised in south florida and South Africa, I enjoy hot weather and the outdoors. When I was 16, I traveled to the Ecuadorian Amazon with author John Perkins and was able to stay with the Shuar tribe. There I learned about extractive industries such as oil exploration that were impacting the indigenous way of life. Since that trip, I have been dedicated to exploring the relationship between changes in the environment, stress, and indigenous health.

I studied neuroscience and immunology at Johns Hopkins University and graduated with a degree in Behavioral Biology in 2008. After graduation, I used a travel grant from Hopkins to pursue an independent research project on medicinal plants of the Amazon through the CREES foundation. I was able to build an ethnobotanical garden at the Manu Learning Center, host a forum for my indigenous informants concerning the most common local illnesses and remedies, and return in 2009 to distribute my research results to the communities. During that time we filmed material on topic such as oil exploration, mining, and road construction in the Amazon.

I am now pursuing my PhD in Biological Anthropology at Northwestern University and plan to conduct research with the Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon and the Shuar of Ecuador to pursue research questions regarding the relationship between environmental changes, stress, and health.