Applied Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Helen Fisher, Love Expert

Dr. Helen Fisher, Chief Scientific Advisor for Match.com

 

Dr. Helen Fisher, who passed away from cancer in 2024, was a world renowned anthropologist known for her extensive work on love.  Beginning with her doctoral research Fisher focused much of her research on understanding how and why people fall in love.  She also sought to understand biocultural patterns of love related to the psychology, culture, and biology of love; infidelity and divorce; and much more.  Today’s blog post will summarize Fisher’s broad career.

 

Helen Fisher (and her twin sister) was born in 1945 in New York City. Her father was an executive for Time magazine and her mother a floral designer.  From a young age Fisher was encouraged to “be useful as well as ornamental.”  This may have led her to study psychology and anthropology at New York University, as well as to the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she earned her Masters and Ph.D. in anthropology.  It was during her doctoral research that she began studying the biological anthropological aspects of love and set her on her career trajectory.

 

After graduating with her doctorate Fisher took on a short-term job as a research editor at Reader’s Digest General Books.  She moved on from here to a career in academia.  She took up teaching and research positions at Rutgers University in New Jersey, the New School for Social Research, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. 

 

It was also during this time that she published several books.  Her first book was published in 1982 and focused on the development of human female sexuality and the root of the nuclear family.  She followed this one up nearly a decade later with a book on the cross-cultural study of infidelity and divorce/marriage endings.  It was during her research for this book that she refuted the popular claim of the “seven year itch”, the idea that relationships end after seven years.  She actually identified that most relationships end at the four year mark.  The reason was simple: people could move on and find a better relationship, allowing them additional time to either have their first children or additional children.  Four additional books followed suit, including one that she submitted days before her death in August 2024.

 

In 2004 Fisher’s work caught the attention of the CEOs of Match.com.  They recruited her to work for their company to improve their mission: linking people up with their optimal love match.  It was here in her capacity as chief scientific advisor where she relied upon her biological anthropological expertise, delved into psychology and neuroscience, and drew on cultural anthropological subject matter to create the Fisher Temperament Inventory, a 62-part questionnaire derived from data collected from six million individuals.  This questionnaire was created through the use of brain scan and survey data collected and analyzed by Fisher and her team at Match.  The questionnaire continues to be used by Match today, which is part of the reason for its success in the matchmaking business.

 

While Fisher dedicated her career to studying love she was less lucky in it.  Her first marriage in the 1960s lasted four months, but it was in the years before her death that she managed to fall in love and married.  Their love story was anything but conventional.  Although short lived it was very fulfilling and left them both very happy. 

 

References

Fisher, H. (2024). Helen Fisher, Ph.D. Retrieved from Helen Fisher, Ph.D.: https://helenfisher.com/

Jones, N. (2021, February 10). Is Love a Biological Reality? Retrieved from Sapiens.org: https://www.sapiens.org/biology/biological-anthropology-love/

Telegraph Obituaries. (2024, August 29). Helen Fisher, scientist who scanned the brains of people in love and the brokenhearted. The Telegraph, pp. https://www.yahoo.com/news/helen-fisher-scientist-scanned-brains-150000011.html.

The Times. (2024, September 4). Helen Fisher obituary: popular academic on love, attraction and sexual behaviour. The Times of London.

 

Applied Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Genevieve Bell, Intel's Secret Weapon

Genevieve Bell (Source: J.R. Mankoff)

One could make a legitimate claim that Genevieve Bell was born to be an anthropologist.  Her mother was a well known Australian anthropologist, and Genevieve accompanied her mother throughout her field studies and work with Australian Aboriginal groups.  Genevieve followed in her mother’s footsteps as she went on to pursue her studies in anthropology.  She earned her Bachelors and Masters in the subject from Bryn Mawr College, followed by her Doctorate from Stanford. 

 

Upon completion of her degrees Genevieve taught at Stanford, but she did not find the work completely fulfilling.  When someone suggested she apply for a job at Intel, American multinational corporation and technology company that specializes in computers, she applied but was unsure how she would fit in.  She said as much during the interview.  Despite her doubts, she was offered the job, and one her first day her new employer said that she was selected because of expertise on women and the “rest of the world,” referencing the people and places outside of the American market. 

 

Genevieve’s first position at Intel was in Research and Development, and over time she led Intel’s first User Experience (UX) laboratory.  Her most recent position is as the Intel Fellow and a Vice President in the Corporate Strategy Office.  She advanced to this prestigious leadership position because of her sharp wit, critical eye, and open world view, incorporating the anthropological skills she learned as a child and through her educational experiences. 

 

Genevieve is credited in pioneering and creating several Intel products.  One is the China Home Learning PC.  This product directly came from Genevieve’s interviews with Chinese parents who were hesitant in purchasing computers for the home because they feared the PC would be a distraction to their children.  This specific PC allows users to limit computer use, allowing parents to prevent children from playing games or using the internet when they were supposed to be completing homework.  Another product she and her UX Laboratory team created was technology that allowed car owners to better sync their personal devices to their cars.  This was a path that went counter to where car markers were going, who felt consumers wanted more technological gadgets attached to their car.  Genevieve and her colleagues’ interviews of people throughout the world recognized that people want to use those gadgets outside of the car, hence why syncing personal, mobile devices was more important than creating gadgets in the car. 

 

In Genevieve’s own words, she focuses on creating “market-inspired, experience-driven and then technology-delivered” products, which is key to her success at Intel.  It is also why she has received numerous awards.  She has received the Fast Company’s 2010 “100 Most Creative People In Business and the 2013 Woman of Vision for Leadership award by the Anita Borg Institute.  She was also inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2012.

 

Works Cited

Australia, G. o. (2011). Who is Genevieve Bell? Retrieved from Adelaide Thinkers in Residence: http://www.thinkers.sa.gov.au/thinkers/bell/who.aspx

Fields, R. (2015, July 16). The Culture Q&A: Intel's Genevieve Bell (Part 1). Forbes.

Singer, N. (2014, February 15). Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist. New York Times.

 

Understanding the Past to Solve Today’s Problems: Adaptability to Climate Change among Diverse African Populations

There is an old adage that goes, “Those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes.”  This rings true not only within historical contexts but others, as well, particularly concerning contemporary issues, such as contemporary climate change.  A group of scholars recently published their study wherein they successfully argued for a holistic understanding of the history of subsistence strategies in order to best aid contemporary societies.  They used African populations as their evidence.  These chose these populations not specifically due to the data available to analyze and test their ideas, but because contemporary African populations are most sensitive and impacted by modern climate change, necessitating a viable solution to the contemporary problems they are currently facing.

 

In their study Phelps et al. examined isotopic, ecological, and archaeological data from African populations that existed over the past 11,000 years.  They noted that near the beginning of this temporal span (as in 11,000 years ago) the African continent was much wetter and tropical, and over time it became drier and more arid.  By examining the isotopic data, which showed peoples’ diets over time, as well as archaeological data to help infer subsistence strategies of said people, they were able to identify how African populations were best able to sustain themselves in the face of climatic shifts. 

 

They ultimately reached the conclusion that those populations that were most resilient were those that utilized a mix of subsistence strategies, not just one.  Africa populations that engaged in a combination of farming, foraging and hunting, fishing, and herding/pastoralism were better able to survive during long periods of environmental changes and uncertainty. 

 

The reason this information is important is because it can be used to assist not only contemporary African populations but other populations across the world as climate change continues.  "If we want climate solutions and global environmental change solutions to work, they need to be rooted in an understanding of the way that people have been using available resources throughout time," said Phelps.  This makes sense as it acknowledges people’s familiarity with their own environments and ways of surviving within them without drastically transforming their ways of life during stressful periods.  It also draws upon successful strategies that worked in the past and most likely will continue to do so in the present, thereby allowing for informed decision making that will increase the likelihood of successful implementation.

 

References

Fowler, R. (2025, June 26). African societies survived climate shifts for millennia by diversifying how they lived. Phys.org.

Phelps, L. N., Davis, D. S., Chen, J. C., Moore, S., Mangut, C., Lehmann, C. E., & Douglass, K. (2025, June 20). Africa-wide diversification of livelihood strategies: Isotopic insights into Holocene human adaptations to climate change. One Earth.

 

Pacifying the Restless Dead: The Hungry Ghosts Festival

Figure 1: Hungry Ghosts Festival offerings at an altar (Source: China Travel)

 

There are specific occurrences that are consistent among all humans: for example, the need to eat, reproduction and child rearing, and death and dying.  While these are universal instances the reactions to these vary across cultural groups, leading to specific rituals, beliefs, values, and more.  This post will address one such example concerning coping with death and dying: the Hungry Ghosts Festival.

 

Among the Chinese, who observe the Lunar Calendar, there are specific celebrations associated with certain months.  The seventh lunar month is considered the Ghost Month because at the beginning of this month the dead are released from the underworld and left to roam free across the Earth.  During their time in the underworld the dead were deprived of food, affection, and other necessities, leading them to be wearing, hungry, and angry upon their arrival to dwell among the living.  This results in the Chinese practicing a series of rituals to appease the ghosts, of which the most important is the Hungry Ghosts Festival. 

 

The Hungry Ghosts Festival is celebrated in the middle of the Ghost Month, and in 2025 this specific festival falls on today’s date, September 6, 2025.  The Hungry Ghosts Festival can last one to several days, ultimately depending on the community’s resources.  If the community has excess money and resources the festival lasts longer than those communities with less.  The purpose of the Hungry Ghosts Festival is to provide offerings to appease the weary and angry dead to prevent them from enacting revenge or taking their anger out on the living.  

 

To appease the dead within individual homes the residents place their ancestral tablets on a table, along with burning incense and several fresh meals throughout the day.  Community members will also burn incense, light paper lanterns, and place food at specific monuments and locations of importance to the deceased (Figure 1).  At each location individuals will share information with the deceased, either asking for blessings or forgiveness depending on what news is shared.  Performances, including but not limited to operas, are performed to entertain the deceased.  A large feast is the pinnacle of the Hungry Ghosts Festival, with a place or two set aside and left empty for the ghosts.

 

The origins of this specific festival are tied back to Buddhism.  According to lore a young man’s mother died and she was punished in the underworld because she led a selfish and cruel life.  Following Buddhist doctrine the man was able to release his dead mother from her torment by chanting, singing, and making food offerings.  Over time the Hungry Ghosts Festival transformed to meet Chinese Daoist beliefs, and it is practiced in combination with the traditional Buddhist and newer Daoist traditions and values.  Unfortunately, due to changing cultural values among the Chinese fewer and fewer of them are celebrating the Hungry Ghosts Festival, leading it to be endanger of becoming a defunct cultural tradition. There are Chinese populations across the Asian continent that continue this tradition, however.

 

Works Cited

Chan, Selina Ching. "Moral Taste: Food for Ghosts in Hong Kong's Chaozhou Hungry Ghosts Festival." Journal of Chinese Dietary Culture (2017): 51-85. Print.

Chan, Selina Ching, and Shengdan Cai. "Preserving and exhibiting intangible cultural heritage via virtual museum: A case study of the Hungry Ghosts Festival in Hong Kong." The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 48 (2023): 405-411.

China Highlights. Hungry Ghost Festival. 2025. Electronic. 8 July 2025.