Biography
Hi, I'm Athena Aktipis, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University and co-Director of The Cooperation Science Network and The Human Generosity Project. I study cooperation across systems from human sharing to cancer. I'm the founder of Zombified Media; host of the podcast, Zombified, and author of the book from Princeton University Press, The Cheating Cell: How evolution helps us understand and treat cancer. When COVID-19 was on the verge of becoming a pandemic, I started the Cooperation in the Apocalypse project to better understand how crises affect cooperation, interdependence and other social behaviors. I am passionate about building interdisciplinary teams to tackle tough questions, empowering students to learn about the topics they are most curious about, and leveraging cooperation theory to improve our universities and the broader communities in which we are all embedded. Also, I have fun writing and performing comedy, especially musical parodies about the apocalypse and zombification.