معرفی
Katherine Amato is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on the role of gut microbiota in host ecology and evolution, using non-human primates as models to understand microbial contributions to nutrition, energetics, and health. She holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution & Conservation Biology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2013) and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Amato is affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. Professional roles include President of the Midwest Primate Interest Group, Associate Editor at Microbiome, and Editorial Board member at Folia Primatologica. Her key research areas include microbiome adaptation to environmental stress, host genetics-microbiome interactions, and the evolutionary origins of human fermented food consumption.
- Education: A.B., Biology (Dartmouth College); Ph.D., Ecology, Evolution & Conservation Biology (UIUC)
- Affiliations: CIFAR Fellow (Humans & Microbiome Program)
Her work bridges biological anthropology and microbial ecology, exploring how microbiomes buffer hosts against nutritional challenges and shape inter-specific metabolic differences. Recent studies investigate global human microbiome variation and its links to local adaptation. She teaches courses such as Primate Behavior and Ecology, Human Microbiome and Health, and Microbiome Analysis.
Notable contributions include identifying fermented food consumption in wild primates and its ecological drivers, and highlighting microbiome disparities linked to health inequities. Her lab employs multi-omics approaches to study microbiome dynamics across species and environments.
