Dr Jonathan Goodman

I am an assistant professor in the public health, ageing, and the brain group at the Department of Psychiatry, and am interested in how insights from the evolutionary sciences can help to solve pressing issues like health inequality and the erosion of trust in society. My work draws on a diverse body of research, ranging from anthropology and biology to ethics and public health, which I believe apply effectively to major societal problems like inequality. 

I am also a science communicator and my first book, Invisible Rivals: how we evolved to compete in a cooperative world, was published with Yale University Press in 2025.

Prior to my PhD, I was a Fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London and a Templeton Foundation–grant-funded researcher at City University in New York’s Department of Biology. I have also worked as an editor of an oncology-focused magazine published by Haymarket Media and as a research assistant at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

I have a BA in Philosophy from Emory University and an MA and research MPhil from the University of London, where I focused on ethics and the philosophy of biology.