Our Team

Erik Gjesfjeld is a Program Officer in Religion, Science, & Society at the John Templeton Foundation, where he oversees philanthropic initiatives within the social, behavioral, cognitive, and health sciences. He has a particular interest in projects that advance quantitative and computational methods, apply models of evolutionary change, and promote open science best practices.

Erik previously served as a Renfrew Fellow in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and a Research Fellow at Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge. Prior to this, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Institute for Society and Genetics and a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He obtained his PhD at the University of Washington in Anthropology, his MA degrees in Archaeology at University College London, and his BA in Archaeological Studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.