Publications

BOOKS (Refereed)

Bingham SC, Howells ME. (2025). (Re)framing the “American Dream”: Windows into the History, Politics, and Economics of Tiny Housing. Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/reframing-the-american-dream-9798881804510/

JOURNAL ARTICLES (Refereed) - Student Co-Authors are coded in GREEN 

Howells ME, Chen-Edinboro L, Reich J, Blair A. (2025). Delivering Disaster: Intergenerational Impacts of Climate Disasters on Birthweight. Invited Article: Annals of Human Biology Special 50th Anniversary Issue: Human Biology, Climate Change & Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014460.2025.2494570

Howells ME, Aunchalee P, Josefson C, Dancause K, Quinn E, Daniels D, Blair A. (2025). The Impacts of Water Insecurity and Heat Stress on Pregnancy, Parturition, and Lactation: An Assessment of Trade-Offs and Constraints in Human Reproduction to Climate Change. Invited Article: Evolutionary Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine. Special Issue: Heat and Water Stress Across the Human Lifetime. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoaf008

Howells ME, LeZotte J, LeShonda Wallace, Edward Adams, Jeffrey Mills, Isabelle Nechvatal. 2024. The AIDS Memorial Quilt as Radical Public History. The Public Historian. Vol 46 (4): 65-87. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/942907

Loudon JE, Howells ME, Sutarjana N, Buana IN, Buda W, Wandia IN, Putra A, Fuentes A. 2024. Healing Hanuman’s Army: A Model of Veterinary Care at the Ubud Monkey Forest. Animals. Special Issue: Human Animal Interactions. 14(1):117-140. http://10.3390/ani14010117

Loudon JE, Smith BK, Bianchi S, Howells ME, Krowka MA, Gomez AM, Davison S, Paine OCC, Sponheimer M. (2023). Variable digestibility of captive northern greater galagos (Otolemur garnettii) fed experimental “frugivorous” and “insectivorous” diets. Zoo Biology. 42(5):644-650 https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21773

Lynn CD, Howells ME, Muehlenbein MP, Nowak T, Gassen J, Henderson A. (2023). Tattooing as a Phenotypic Gambit. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 182(1):7-11. http://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24741

Howells ME, Wander K, Rivera L, Arfouni C, Benhelal O, Dancause K. (2023). Maternal stress and hair cortisol among pregnant women following Hurricane Florence. Invited Special Issue: Extreme Weather Events and their Impact on Health and Human Biology. American Journal of Human Biology. 35(1), e23847 https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23847

Howells ME, Dancause K. (2022). “Go with the Flo”: Conducting research on prenatal stress following Hurricane Florence as participant observers. Frontiers in Medical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.957127

Howells ME, Woolard KL, April TB, Bender R, Loudon JE. (2022). Is there a difference in student physical activity between a field school and a traditional classroom setting? American Journal of Human Biology. DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23799 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.23799

Lynn CD, Howells ME, Muehlenbein MP, Wood H, Caballero GW, Nowak Tj, Gassen J. (2022). Tattooing, rheostasis, and psychoneuroimmunology. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology. DOI: http://10.1002/ajhb.22847

Loudon JL, Lewis AE, Turner TR, Grobler JP, Howells ME, Pender JE. (2022). Ecotoxicology at anthropogenically disturbed sites inhabited by vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). Primates. 63:525–533. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-022-01002-3

Bala N, Cook-Sather A, Slates Sarah, Amer A, Anthony H, Cachia C, Cassidy A, Conley CF, Costello K, DeVita JM, Galvan AS, Howells ME, Kapur M, Kizimchuk S, Kladder J, Liao C, Medland E, Mori Y, Morrin AM, Nyrose S, O’Connor R, Pountney G, Selby M, Sipos Y, Srinivasan S. (2022). The art of partnership: Expanding representations and interpretations. International Journal for Students as Partners. Vol. 6 Issue 2. 135-152.  https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v6i2.5315

Howells ME, Dancause K. (2021). Effects of Stress on Pregnancy: Outcomes After a Hurricane. Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Grant Report Series, Vol 305. Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder. https://hazards.colorado.edu/quick-response-report/effects-of-stress-on-pregnancy

Brazelton L, Howells ME, Landgraf L, Lynn CD. (2021). Impacts of family and fieldwork on career/family balance among tenure-track and tenured anthropologists. American Journal of Human Biology, e23686. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23686

Sarma MS, Gildner TE, Howells ME, Lew-Levy S, Trumble BC, Fuentes A. (2021). There and back again: The biosocial dynamics of returning from the field. American Journal of Human Biology, e23673. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23673

Howells ME, Dancause K, Pond R, Rivera L, Simmons D, Alston BD. (2020). Maternal marital status predicts self-reported stress among pregnant women following Hurricane Florence. American Journal of Human Biology. 32:e23427. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23427

Carney RM, Howells ME, Tanumafili A, Matalavea A, Gafa J, Isaia L. Trends of Chlamydia, Gonorrhoea, Hepatitis and Syphilis Infections in Samoa from 2012 to 2017. (2020). World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Surveillance and Response Journal (WPSAR). 11(1). doi: http://10.5365/wpsar.2019.10.2.004

Lynn CD, Howells ME, Herdrich D, Ioane J, Hudson D, Fitiao ST. (2019). The evolutionary adaptation of body art: Tattoo as an honest signal of immunological fitness in American Samoa. American Journal of Human Biology.  https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23347

Hawley NL, Tripathi RR, Muasau-Howard B, Howells ME, Faiai M, Van der Ryn M. (2019). Knowledge of gestational mellitus among pregnant women in American Samoa. The Pacific Journal of Reproductive Health. https://doi.org/10.18313/pjrh.2019.902

Lynn CD, Howells ME, Stein MJ. (2018). Family and the field: expectations of a field-based research career affect researcher family planning decisions. PLoS One. 13(9): e0203500.

Howells ME, Lynn CD, Weaver J, Langford-Sesepesara M, Tufa J. (2018). Zika Virus in American Samoa: challenges for prevention and management in the context of non-communicable disease. Annuals of Human Biology. Special Invited Edition Human Biology in the Pacific. Vol 45, No 3 (229-238).

Van Tilburg H, Herdrick DJ, Howells ME, Sesepasara VH, Ausage TC, Coszalter M. (2018). “Row as One!” A History of the Development and Use of the Sāmoan Fautasi. The Journal of the Polynesian Society.

Howells ME, Lynn C, Ocobock C, Robinson C, Woolard K. (2017). It’s a Deadman’s Party: Integrative Evolutionary Education. The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium. 7(1):132-149.

Howells ME, Ah Ching J, Bender R. (2016). Does maternal marital status indirectly influence use of medical interventions during delivery in American Samoa? Pacific Journal of Reproductive Health. 1(3):102-108. DOI: 10.18313/pjrh.2016.901

Howells ME. (2016). Debates and Controversies: Myth of the Freshman 15. In: Filling Up: The Psychology of Eating. Justine Reel (eds). Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood / ABC-CLIO.

Howells ME, Pruetz J, Gillespie TR. (2010). Patterns of Gastro-Intestinal Parasites and Commensals as an Index of Population and Ecosystem Health: The Case of Sympatric Western Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and Guinea Baboons (Papio hamadryas papio) at Fongoli, Senegal. American Journal of Primatology 71:1-7.

Sponheimer M, Loudon JE, Codron D, Howells ME, Pruetz JD, Codron J, de Ruiter DJ, Lee-Thorp JA. (2006). Do "Savanna" Chimpanzees Consume C4 Resources? Journal of Human Evolution 51:128-133.

Loudon JE, Howells ME, Fuentes A. (2006). The Importance of Integrative Anthropology: A Preliminary Investigation Employing Primatological and Cultural Anthropology Data Collection Methods in Assessing Human-Monkey Co-existence in Bali, Indonesia. Ecological and Environmental Anthropology 2:2-13.

REFEREED BOOK CHAPTERS - Student Co-Authors are coded in GREEN 

Fair J, Howells ME. (2025). Tiny Houses and the Housing Crisis Black Baltimore. In: (Re)framing the “American Dream”: Windows into the History, Politics, and Economics of Tiny Housing. Bingham SC, Howells ME. Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland.

Saxton M, Howells ME. (2025). The Environmental Impacts of Tiny Home Downsizers: A Study Overview. In: (Re)framing the “American Dream”: Windows into the History, Politics, and Economics of Tiny Housing. Bingham SC, Howells ME. Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland.

Howells ME, Loudon JE, Brotcorne F, Petterson JV, Wandia IN, Putra IGAA, Fuentes A. (2022). Primates and primatologists: reflecting on two decades of primatological and ethnoprimatological research, tourism, and conservation at the Ubud Monkey Forest. Tourism and Indonesia’s Primates. Springer, Developments in Primatology. Eds Gursky S, Supriatna J, Achorn A.

Sponheimer M, Loudon JE, Howells ME. (2019). Fossil primates from flooded habitats: the antiquity of an association. In A.A. Barnett, I. Matsuda, and K. Nowak (eds) Primates in Flooded Habitats: Ecology and Conservation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Howells ME, Pieters M. (2018). “The mosquito brings the sickness”: local knowledge, stigma, and barriers to Zika prevention in rural Guatemala. In D. Schwartz (eds) Maternal Health, Pregnancy-Related Morbidity and Death Among Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America: An Anthropological, Epidemiological and Biomedical Approach. Springer Nature.

REFEREED BOOK REVIEWS, ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES, OTHERS  - Student Co-Authors are coded in GREEN 

Howells ME. (2018). Zika: From the Brazilian Backlands to Global Threat. American Journal of Human Biology (Invited Book review). American Journal of Human Biology.

Howells ME. (2018). Puberty in nonhuman primates. The International Encyclopedia of Biological Anthropology. Eds. W. Trevathan. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Howells ME. (2017). Puberty. The International Encyclopedia of Primatology. Eds. A Fuentes. Wiley Blackwell.

Howells ME, Pieters M. (2016). Zika’s Frightening Stranglehold. Sapiens (Online Magazine of the Wenner Gren Foundation). Published February 8, 2016. https://www.sapiens.org/biology/zika-and- family-planning/

Howells ME. 2013. Evolution of Menopause. Citizendium. https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Evolution_of_menopause

Courses

• Human Origins and Variation (ANTH 120)

• Human Diversity (ANTH 274)

• Human Biology (ANTH 472)