Rate My Professor Stacey Rucas

Professor Stacey Rucas serves as a Professor in the Social Sciences Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she specializes in anthropology with a focus on human evolutionary ecology. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 2004. Her research specializations include human evolutionary ecology, life history theory, medical anthropology and behavioral ecology of sleep, women’s social dynamics, characteristics of social networks, coalitions and partnerships, life-history characteristics of resource competition and cooperation, and cultural evolutionary ecology. Rucas teaches courses such as Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, ANG Research Design and Methods, Human Behavioral Ecology, Professional Preparation for Anthropology and Geography, and Indigenous South Americans. She has mentored undergraduate students in numerous research projects through her Human Evolutionary Ecology lab, including studies on maternal competition, locus of control and autonomy on motivation, conspiratorial thinking, and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on locus of control. These efforts have earned Learn by Doing grants and accolades such as first place at the California Workshop on Evolutionary Social Science conference.

Rucas received the Richard K. Simon Award for Outstanding Career Achievement in Teaching in 2024. Her key publications include invited book chapters such as "Cooperation drives competition among Tsimane Women of the Bolivian Amazon" and "Social aggression, sleep, and wellbeing among Sidama Women of rural southwestern Ethiopia" in the Oxford Handbook of Women and Competition (2017), refereed journal articles like "The Social Strategy Game: Resource competition within female social networks among small-scale forager-horticulturalists" (Human Nature, 2010), "Social aggression and resource conflict across the female life-course in the Bolivian Amazon" (Aggressive Behavior, 2012), "Why do men marry and why do they stray" (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2007), and "Female intrasexual competition and reputational effects on attractiveness among the Tsimane of Bolivia" (Evolution and Human Behavior, 2006), as well as the encyclopedia entry "Current versus future reproduction trade-offs" (2018). She has directed study abroad programs including the Cal Poly Global Program in Thailand and Cambodia and served as Resident Director for the Thailand Studies Program. Additionally, she has contributed to department initiatives such as career fairs, WASC strategic planning, and first-generation student support.