Rachel Carmody, Ph.D.

Rachel Carmody, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator
Associate Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology
Rachel Carmody, Ph.D.

I seek to understand how the human body acquires and utilizes energy, and how past changes in energy budget have shaped human evolution. Within the past decade, it has become clear that energy metabolism depends on complex interactions between diet, health, genetics, and the structure and function of the microbial communities living inside the human body. My work considers the human body as an ecosystem, integrating perspectives and experimental techniques from evolutionary biology, nutrition, physiology, microbiology, and metagenomics to pursue a richer understanding of energy exchange. Currently, my group is employing this ecosystem approach to probe the digestive capacities that are unique to humans, host-microbial cooperation and conflict over energy resources, and the caloric potential of non-caloric dietary components.

Curriculum vitae

Contact Information

Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
11 Divinity Avenue, 5th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Office: MCZ 542
Lab: Peabody 56C
Phone: 617-495-0846