people

Katherine Sayre

Katie
Department of Anthropology
UC Santa Barbara
Broom Center Affiliation(s)

Postdoctoral Scholar

Katie Sayre is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work draws on theory and methodology from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, gerontology, public health, and demography. Her work explores how human lifestyles and biology interact over the life course and impact health during older adulthood, particularly in non-Western populations. She has previously examined the relationship between physical activity patterns and physical function during aging in groups of pastoralists and foragers in East Africa. Now, she works with the Tsimané Health and Life History Project, and focuses on how social relationships and communities impact both physical and cognitive health outcomes for older Tsimané women and men in Bolivia. She earned her BA in Anthropology and French at the University of Texas at Austin, her MS in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and her PhD in Integrative and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Southern California. 

Publications

Raichlen, D. A., Ally, M., Aslan, D. H., Sayre, M. K., Bharadwaj, P. K., Maltagliati, S., ... & Alexander, G. E. 2024. 
"Associations between accelerometer‐derived sedentary behavior and physical activity with white matter hyperintensities in middle‐aged to older adults. "
Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 16(3), e70001.
Wood, B. M., Raichlen, D. A., Pontzer, H., Harris, J. A., Sayre, M. K., Paolo, B., ... & Mabulla, A. Z. 2024
"Beyond the here and now: hunter–gatherer socio-spatial complexity and the evolution of language. "
Philosophical Transactions B, 379(1912), 20220521. 
Raichlen, D. A., Aslan, D. H., Sayre, M. K., Bharadwaj, P. K., Ally, M., Maltagliati, S., ... & Alexander, G. E. 2023.
"Sedentary behavior and incident dementia among older adults. "
Jama, 330(10), 934-940.
Sayre, M. K., Anyawire, M., Paolo, B., Mabulla, A. Z., Pontzer, H., Wood, B. M., & Raichlen, D. A. 2023
"Lifestyle and patterns of physical activity in Hadza foragers"
American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 182(3), 340-356.
Raichlen, D. A., Furlong, M., Klimentidis, Y. C., Sayre, M. K., Parra, K. L., Bharadwaj, P. K., ... & Alexander, G. E. 2022. 
"Association of physical activity with incidence of dementia is attenuated by air pollution. "
Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 54(7), 1131.
Raichlen, D. A., Klimentidis, Y. C., Sayre, M. K., Bharadwaj, P. K., Lai, M. H., Wilcox, R. R., & Alexander, G. E. 2022.
"Leisure-time sedentary behaviors are differentially associated with all-cause dementia regardless of engagement in physical activity. "
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(35), e2206931119.
Wood, B. M., Harris, J. A., Raichlen, D. A., Pontzer, H., Sayre, K., Sancilio, A., ... & Jones, J. H. 2021. 
"Gendered movement ecology and landscape use in Hadza hunter-gatherers. "
Nature Human Behaviour, 5(4), 436-446.  
Sayre, M. K., Pontzer, H., Alexander, G. E., Wood, B. M., Pike, I. L., Mabulla, A. Z., & Raichlen, D. A. 2020. 
"Ageing and physical function in East African foragers and pastoralists. "
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 375(1811), 20190608.
Sayre, M. K., Pike, I. L., & Raichlen, D. A. 2019. 
"High levels of objectively measured physical activity across adolescence and adulthood among the Pokot pastoralists of Kenya. "
American Journal of Human Biology, 31(1), e23205.