Applied Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Drew Wade, Cybersecurity Technical Consultant

Figure 1: Drew Wade, Security Consultant (Image Source: Drew Wade's LinkedIn Profile)

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Drew Wade when we were both graduate students at the University of Western Ontario (Figure 1).  Drew entered the program a year after I started, and we worked alongside each other on our respective bioarchaeological projects.  Because both of our research projects fell under the same graduate supervisor and involved mummies (albeit in different parts of the world) our paths crossed frequently.  Drew’s research was quite different from my own in that he pursued the cutting edge avenues of technological research that involved computer programming, advanced medical imaging, and more.  As a graduate student Drew founded the Mummipedia Project, an online database that brings together images and information about mummies from around the world, and he continues to work with the IMPACT Radiological Mummy Database Project, a multi-institutional research project dedicated to the study of mummies through medical imaging and non-invasive/non-destructive techniques.

 

After earning his Doctorate Drew bounced around between short term academic positions.  He did not like the instability of this work, so he opted to pursue other options based on his previously gained management experience (from his previous work with the Mummipedia and IMPACT Radiological Mummy Database Projects).  Through investigating his options Drew discovered he would need more coursework in computer programming, one of his previously realized passions, and he opted to pursue a certificate program in cybersecurity.  He quickly recognized how his anthropological background could be utilized to enhance his cybersecurity education and pursuits.  By understanding how culture guides and drives human behavior and how cultural changes can and do affect values, beliefs, and subsequently actions he could better understand what drives people to either follow or disregard the rules, particularly when it comes to cybersecurity.  He could also more easily communicate that information to computer programmers and business personnel, giving them a better understanding of all of the aspects of the problems they may face and are currently facing.  

 

Drew currently works as a Security Consultant at the NCC Group North America where he uses his anthropological knowledge regularly.  In his biographical profile for Prime Earth Ace Advice, he notes that it is not the strengths or weaknesses of the computer systems that matters most but the ability of the human teams who produce, maintain, and update those systems to work effectively and efficiently that is paramount.  He uses his anthropological skills to identify the strengths of the team members who work together in producing the best systems, and he maximizes their potentials and works to ensure the communication among team members is clear and precise.  He has furthered his training to focus on phishing scams, and here to his anthropological knowledge has aided him greatly.  Through symbol recognition and language choices he better understands the success of phishing schemes, and he then turns around and uses that to better educate others on how to not fall for these tricks. 

 

Taken together, the combination of anthropology and cybersecurity allows for Drew to be efficient at his job, becoming a valuable asset to the company he works for.  Drew will be speaking to the public about his anthropological and cybersecurity experiences sometime this year.  You can learn more about this event and register for free for it by visiting the Prime Earth website.

References

Wade, D. (2021). ACE Advice: A Virtual Chat with Drew Wade. Retrieved from Prime Earth: https://www.prime-earth.org/ace-office-hr-public-registration

Psycholinguistics

Linguistics, the study of language, is a distinctive field of study in and of itself.  It is, however, a discipline that does cross cut the boundaries of other disciplines, allowing for study of various different aspects of language in and of itself or through those other fields of study.  For example, linguistic anthropology is an area of anthropological research that examines the interconnections between language and culture.  Specific study questions pertaining to the sounds that exist within languages spoken today and/or in the past, the meaning of words within languages, the origins of language, and more are all questions asked by both linguistic anthropologists and linguists, but one of the fundamental questions posed by many anthropologists, which is what are the origins of language, is one that can be frame from a psycholinguistic approach.  This blog post will discuss what psycholinguistics is and how it is being used to address this question.

 

Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological processes involved in language.  It is a broad subdiscipline that does cross cut anthropology, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and, of course, linguistics.  Early psycholinguistic scholars, starting with the credited pioneer of this field of study, Wilhelm Wundt, believed that language was acquired through conditioning.  Young children learned how to speak by repeating what their parents said and associating the words with specific emotional responses.  There remains quite a bit of evidence to support this idea (as anyone who has been around children know that they are much like sponges and repeat what is said around them).

 

This approach, however, neglects the biological aspects required for language acquisition and use.  This is evident when examining non-human primates and language use.  Non-human primates communicate, but they have not produced their own languages.  They can learn sign language and demonstrate several linguistic abilities that were thought to be unique to humans, but they still lack some of the biological requirements for full language use (e.g., the FoxP2 gene).  It is through the study of nonhuman primates and humans of various ages and from various cultural groups that it is clear that environmental (cultural) and natural (biological) circumstances played a role in the creation and formation of languages among humans.

 

Today, psycholinguists focus on a variety of study topics, ranging from the social/cultural to the biological.  They can study how written versus spoken language is understood cognitively, understanding how language is interpreted different by those with either learning or other serious cognitive disabilities, as well as attempt to better understand first and second language acquisition patterns within and between age groups.  Each of these can be approached from a solely social/cultural or biological perspective, although the most complete answers may come from studying these topics holistically and bridging both perspectives.  This is why psycholinguistics remains an interdisciplinary field of study-no one approach can truly answer the questions psycholinguists seek to answer.

 

Works Cited

No Author. (2014). Psycholinguistics. obo in Psychology. 

Ratner, N.B. (2004). Encyclopedia of Neuroscience || Psycholinguistics. , (), 1199–1204

Von Raffler-Engel W. (1992) The Contribution of Psycholinguistics to the Study of Language Origins. In: Wind J., Chiarelli B., Bichakjian B., Nocentini A., Jonker A. (eds) Language Origin: A Multidisciplinary Approach. NATO ASI Series (Series D: Behavioural and Social Sciences), vol 61. Springer, Dordrecht.