Rate My Professor Erin Hecht

Erin Hecht is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, where she joined the faculty in January 2019. She earned a B.S. in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2006 and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Emory University in 2013. Before arriving at Harvard, Hecht held positions as a Research Scientist in the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at Georgia State University and as an Affiliated Scientist at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University. Her research centers on brain-behavior evolution, examining how brains change in response to selection pressures on behavior and acquire heritable adaptations for complex, learned behaviors. Hecht directs the Evolutionary Neuroscience Laboratory, utilizing structural and functional neuroimaging in living humans and dogs, alongside histological analyses of fixed brains from diverse species. Her studies compare modern humans and primate relatives to illuminate human evolutionary history, investigate neural and behavioral variation across domestic dog breeds and domesticated foxes, and explore neural plasticity during skill acquisition linked to innate predispositions.

Hecht's influential publications include 'Cognitive demands of Lower Paleolithic toolmaking' (PLoS One, 2015), 'Evolutionary neuroscience of cumulative culture' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017), 'Acquisition of Paleolithic toolmaking abilities involves structural remodeling to inferior frontoparietal regions' (Brain Structure and Function, 2015), and more recent works such as 'Brain–Behavior Differences in Premodern and Modern Lineages of Domestic Dogs' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2025), 'Influence of Early Life Adversity and Breed on Aggression and Fear in Dogs' (2025), 'A Left-Lateralized White Matter Tract Associated With Communication in Domestic Dogs' (Current Biology, 2024), and 'Covariation of Skull and Brain Morphology in Domestic Dogs' (Journal of Comparative Neurology, 2024). She received the 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship, recognizing her contributions to neuroscience. Hecht teaches General Education course 1209: Dogs in Science and has delivered community lectures on canine neuroscience, extending her impact beyond academia.