Prof Nicole Boivin
Professor Nicole Boivin is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and the curator of this online project “The Past, Present and Future of the Human Niche”. In her own research, she works across disciplines and the traditional border between science and the humanities, looking at human history over the long-term, and the broad patterns of migration, interaction and environmental manipulation that have shaped the human story. The author of Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Role of Things in Human Thought, Society and Evolution (2008, CUP), she is currently working on a new book exploring how humans have reshaped the natural world over thousands of years. Since June 2020 she has been leading the process of reorientation of MPI-SHH Jena around the concept of the Human Niche – a process which this project influences and informs.
