Rate My Professor Barnaby Dixson

Dr Barnaby Dixson serves as Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast, affiliated with the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research as an anthropologist. He holds a PhD in Behavioural Ecology from Victoria University of Wellington, where he was awarded the 2011 Doctoral Thesis Award and the 2007 New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarship, and a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dixson has built a career across social sciences, evolutionary ecology, and social psychology departments, leading over 15 years of research projects in the Pacific Islands. His fieldwork includes doctoral studies on body image and gender in Samoa (2006–2010), establishing field sites in Vanuatu (Efate, Santo, Tanna) for research on social networks, health, and child cognition (2012–present), and collaborations on family health and social networks in Papua New Guinea (2008–2010) and the Solomon Islands (2018).

Dixson's research integrates qualitative and quantitative cross-cultural data collection in small-scale societies, laboratory behavioral studies, and demographic analyses, focusing on maternal and child health (Growing Up in New Zealand Project; MaMi Project investigating maternal micronutrient availability in Vanuatu), paternal mental health (Queensland Family Cohort on perinatal and postnatal depression in fathers), and experimental psychology (facial expression perception using ratings, eye-tracking, and EEG). Among his honors are the 2016 Queensland Young Tall Poppy of the Year and University of Queensland Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2015–2019). He has obtained significant funding, including an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2011–2014, $334,000). Key publications include "Sexual selection and the evolution of human appearance enhancements" (Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2021), "Sexual selection, agonistic signalling, and the effect of beards on men’s anger displays" (Psychological Science, 2019), "Scaling theory of mind in a small-scale society: A case study from Vanuatu" (Child Development, 2018), and "Cross-cultural consensus for waist-to-hip ratio and women’s attractiveness" (Evolution and Human Behavior, 2010). Dixson coordinates undergraduate courses in research methods, statistics, and intercultural psychology, and is a member of the International Academy of Sex Research and Fellow of the Behavioural and Brain Sciences Foundation.