Tesla Monson, PhD, is an award-winning paleoanthropologist and professor of anthropology. She travels the world to visit museum collections and study fossil primates, and her research has been featured by the BBC, Popular Mechanics, and The Global Post, among others. Prof. Monson’s debut nonfiction book, BEGINNINGS: HOW THE EVOLUTION OF PREGNANCY MADE US HUMAN, is scheduled for release with Macmillan/Flatiron in 2027. When not in the lab or classroom, Tesla enjoys standing outside in the rain, reading sci-fi, and playing music with her band. She lives in the Salish Sea region of Washington with her family and cat, Awassa.

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grantee and Professor of Anthropology at Western Washington University, Tesla A. Monson, PhD, is an internationally-recognized, award-winning scholar whose writing has been viewed and shared by millions of people worldwide. She earned a BA from Princeton University, a MA from San Francisco State University, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Tesla teaches courses on biological anthropology, human evolution, and the human skeleton. She trains both undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology research.

Tesla’s research and teaching focus on the evolution of reproduction and the growth of the skeletal system in living and fossil primates. She has published 30 peer-reviewed papers in top journals like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Annals of Human Biology, and Ecology and Evolution, with press features and international news articles in Science and Inverse Magazine (11 million readers monthly). Her recent pieces in the popular science news outlet The Conversation have brought in more than 190,000 readers and been picked up by media outlets worldwide.

Tesla has more than a decade’s experience giving and conducting media interviews, with features on The BBC (Up All Night, 5.2 million listeners weekly) and other prominent science podcasts (e.g. PrimateCast, The Graduates, Diálogos Sapiens). Tesla is regularly invited to speak about her research at institutions worldwide (e.g., Kyoto University, University of Kentucky, University of Tübingen).

Prof. Tesla Monson’s debut nonfiction book, BEGINNINGS: HOW THE EVOLUTION OF PREGNANCY MADE US HUMAN, is scheduled for release with Macmillan/Flatiron in 2027. When not in the lab or classroom, Tesla enjoys standing outside in the rain, reading sci-fi, and playing music with her band. She lives in the Salish Sea region of Washington with her family and cat, Awassa.

Paleoanthropologist and professor of anthropology Dr. Tesla Monson, PhD’s BEGINNINGS: HOW THE EVOLUTION OF PREGNANCY MADE US HUMAN, introducing the author’s research alongside her lived experience as a mother to argue that reproduction and pregnancy are responsible for the evolution of human intelligence.

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