People

Charles' research focuses on the gene-culture coevolution of human social cognition and behavior in domains involving conformity, coordination, conflict, and cooperation. He routinely mixes evolutionary modeling with the analysis of both experimental and observational data. He has conducted fieldwork in Europe, Western Asia, Africa, and South America. Much of Charles' current empirical research examines the social psychological mechanisms underlying social norms and cultural traditions that harm women and girls. This research often has direct policy implications, and it has afforded him the opportunity to collaborate extensively with UNICEF, the World Bank, and various NGOs.

Sonja uses lab and field experiments to examine the social and psychological mechanisms needed for sustainable behavioral change in development. Current projects include corruption in higher education in Colombia and South Africa, reducing school drop-outs in Malawi, female genital cutting in Sudan, pre-natal sex selection in Armenia, and social learning in Kenya. Sonja's research is in collaboration with UN agencies and local NGO’s. She is affiliated with Nuffield College and the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford, as well as the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Bern.

Akshay completed his PhD at the Norwegian School of Economics. His research interests are in Behavioural and Development Economics. He uses experimental and survey data to study topics such as social learning, belief formation, and heterogeneity in social preferences between cultures and countries. Akshay works with Sonja Vogt.

Lukas is currently a Postdoc at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne, where he works with Charles Efferson on an SNSF-funded project. Broadly, his research aims to deepen the understanding of gene-culture coevolution by exploring the complexities of social learning and its influence on cultural evolutionary dynamics. Lukas' primary research interest lies in the cultural evolution of social norms related to sustainability. He investigates this area through theoretical modelling, incentivised behavioural experiments, and agent-based simulations.

Katelyn is a PhD candidate in economics at HEC Lausanne under the supervision of Charles Efferson. She holds a MSc in Economics from HEC Lausanne and a BSc in Actuarial Science from Florida State University. Her research interests include cultural evolution, the evolution of inequality, development economics, and climate change economics. Katelyn’s current research is part of a 4-year SNSF funded project on gene-culture coevolution.

Florent works on the evolution of cooperation using agent-based simulation. His usual centres of interest are Quantitative Economics, Evolutionary Economics, Game Theory. Florent works with Charles.

Eva Marti is a PhD candidate at the Department of Strategy, Globalization and Society at the University of Lausanne. In the framework of the AgriPath project, she studies how intra-household decision-making processes affect access to digitally supported advisory services for smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia. Before coming to Lausanne, she worked on impact evaluations in Latin America and Asia on issues such as gender, rural microfinance and adaptation to climate change for the World Bank, Innovations for Poverty Action as well as for the Center for Evaluation and Development in Mannheim.

Rui is a PhD student in Management at HEC Lausanne under the supervision of Charles Efferson. He holds an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences from University College London, and a BA in Philosophy from Sun Yat-sen University. He has previously studied the reputation of third-party punishers. He is interested in the evolution of culture and cooperation, and aims to integrate various research approaches including game theory, behavioral experiments, and simulations.

Hui is a PhD student in economics at HEC Lausanne. She works on the SNSF project "Talking to Machines" under the supervision of Prof. Sonja Vogt. She completed her master’s degree in Economics at the University of Zurich. She has previous studied on seeding interventions on social network. Her research interests include experimental methods, behaviour economics, network economics, and machine learning.

Hi, My name is Harvey, I'm the Pacelab dog, I'm interested in sausage, walks, and applied cultural evolution. Harvey

With over 20 years of experience in architecture in Switzerland and abroad, she blends project and administrative management with a creative background in design, 3D modeling, and visual communication. Passionate about information design and infographics, she supports the team by connecting people and helping things run smoothly.

Dr. Mirko Reul's research focuses on political decision-making and social change. His work combines experimental and observational data with computational modeling to understand socially harmful behavior, such as political violence against minorities or unsustainable land management practices. To that end, he conducted lab and field experiments, surveys, archives, and interviews with research partners in Nepal, India, Palestine, Israel, Germany, and East Africa. Mirko joined the PaceLab team as a postdoctoral researcher with the Agripath project, where he studied the political communication of development policies, and the diffusion of sustainable agriculture. He received his PhD from the Graduate Institute Geneva, and is a Research Associate at the Department of Organizational Behaviour at HEC Lausanne.

Maria holds an MPhil in Human Evolutionary Studies from the University of Cambridge. She has previously studied the evolution of sociality and cooperation among BaYaka hunter-gatherers. She is interested in the dynamics of human social network structure and cultural evolution, in particular with regards to innovation, collective cognition and collective problem-solving. Maria is a PhD student at HEC Lausanne under the supervision of Charles Efferson.

Robin is a SNF Postdoctoral Researcher in the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where he is conducting research on the societal, organizational, and psychological implications of AI-Systems and on human-machine cultural evolution. Previously, he graduated with a PhD from HEC Lausanne under the supervision of Charles Efferson (graduated 2025). He is also associated with the Muthukrishna Lab at the London School of Economics. In his professional career, he has worked in Jordan, Uganda, London, New York, and Zurich.

Sönke is a political scientist by training. He has worked on strategic political decision making and comparative political behavior, and has developed methods for online and computational experiments. He received his PhD from New York University in 2017, worked as a Research Scientist at the University of Oxford from 2017 to 2019, and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Bern and HEC Lausanne until 2024. He is broadly interested in the capacity of individuals to make sophisticated political choices, the ability of leaders to sway groups, and in the relationship between motivated reasoning and knowledge representations. Sönke has recently started on a researcher position at the World Economic Forum.

Lisa is a Ph.D. student in Management at HEC Lausanne and is supervised by Charles Efferson. She holds an MSc in Accounting, Control, and Finance from HEC Lausanne. She is interested in the evolution of human social cognition and behavior, along with applications related to human health and well-being. Lisa’s current research focuses on the link between culture and diet in Switzerland and the potential of applied cultural evolution to reverse harmful alcohol consumption.

Matthias is currently an economist at the Structural Policy Analysis Division of the OECD Economics Department. He recently graduated from Brown University with a PhD in Economics. His dissertation research deals with empirical and theoretical questions at the intersection of demography and economic inequality. His broader research interests are in economic growth, macroeconomics, labor economics, and political economy.

Aysha is currently a Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research is primarily on gene-culture coevolution. She has conducted experimental studies to investigate how similarity modulates the ways in which we learn from others. She also uses computational models to investigate the evolution of optimal decision making in both asocial and social contexts. In particular, she studies how sexual selection may impact the perception of romantic relationships among men and women, surely one of the most fitness-relevant domains in which we find ourselves.