Donna L. Leonetti

Human behavioral ecology; kinship systems and ecology of intergenerational effects on fertility, child survival and growth; and mating patterns in NE India. Fertility, migration, and social epidemiology of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in Japanese Americans. "In the 1990's I rekindled an old interest in India along with a new theoretical interest in human behavioral ecology. A Fulbright Fellowship helped establish my current study in NE India funded jointly by the Indian and US governments. In this study the roles of grandmothers and husbands in two ethnic groups, a patrilineal and a matrilineal society, are studied with respect to their kinship roles and productive, domestic and childcare work contributions which are hypothesized to increase their reproductive fitness. My studies of Japanese Americans began in 1972 and have encompassed aspects of demography and kinship, aging and chronic disease as well as my new work on the behavioral ecology of immigrant success."