Luis Alejandro Villanueva Hernandez (Postdoc)

My research lies at the crossroads of evolutionary biology, cultural evolution, cognitive science of music, and ethnomusicology. Currently, I am interested in analyzing  processes of musical transmission and change through the application of conceptual tools from evolutionary developmental biology. My research aims to develop a theoretical framework that can contribute to a better understanding of the complex dynamics of cultural inheritance and change that operate across multiple temporal and spatial scales.

• 2024-present: Postdoc
  Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology (CCTB), Würzburg, Germany
  Project: The evolutionary roots of music and its diversification across cultures. Towards an evo-devo approach to cultural evolution from an organizational perspective
   
• 2023-2024: Guest Researcher
  Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research KLI, Klosterneuburg, Austria
   
• 2021-2023: Postdoctoral Researcher
  Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research KLI, Klosterneuburg, Austria
   
• 2021-2023: Lecturer in Mexican Traditional Music
  University of Music and Performing Arts MDW, Vienna, Austria
   
• 2020 (June-December): Research Stay
  Institute of Musicology. University of Vienna, Austria
   
• 2020 (March): PhD in Philosophy of Science
  National University of Mexico, UNAM
  Thesis: The evolutionary roots of music. Music as an assemblage of cognitive capacities for social interaction
   
• 2018 (March-September): Writing-up Fellow
  National University of Mexico, UNAM
  Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research KLI, Klosterneuburg, Austria
   
• 2016 (January-June): PhD research stay
  Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

(Forthcoming) Villanueva, Luis Alejandro and Müller, G. An Evo-Devo Model for the Evolution of Music. To appear in Ravignani, A. (ed.). The biology of Music: Interdisciplinary insights. Oxford University Press.

2022. Méndez, Manuel and Villanueva, L Alejandro. Enfermedades en las Indias y legitimación de la aspiración social criolla en la obra médica de Juan de Cárdenas. (Diseases in the Indies and the legitimacy of the social aspiration of criollos in the medical work of Juan de Cardenas). História Unisinos. 23(6): 490-502, 2022

2022. Marco P. Vianna Franco, Orsolya Molnár, Alice Laciny, Marco Treven, Jacob Weger, Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque, Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Luis-Alejandro Villanueva Hernandez, Manuel Jakab, Christine Marizzi, Lumila Paula Menéndez, Luana Poliseli, Hernán Bobadilla Rodríguez ,Guido Caniglia. Diversity regained: Precautionary approaches to COVID-19 as a phenomenon of the total environment. Science of The Total Environment 825(2):1-14, 2022

2021.Cazzolla Gatti R, Menéndez L, Laciny A, Bobadilla H, Bravo G, Carmen E, Dorninger C, Fabris F, Grunstra N, Schnorr S, Stuhlträger J, Villanueva Hernandez L, Jakab M, Sarto-Jackson I, and Caniglia G. Diversity lost: COVID-19 as a phenomenon of the total environment, Science of The Total Environment. 756: 1-14, 2021

2018. Martínez, Sergio and Villanueva, L Alejandro. Musicality as Material Culture. Adaptive Behaviour, 26(5): 257-267, 2018

2018.Martínez, Sergio and Villanueva, L Alejandro. Las prácticas musicales como corporización de tecnologías básicas de la cognición social (Musical practices as embodied technologies of basic cognition) Metatheoria. Revista de Filosofía e Historia de la Ciencia, 8(2):1-14, 2018

2018. Villanueva, Luis Alejandro. Hacia un modelo explicativo de la diversidad sonora del carnaval en la ciudad de Puebla y zonas conurbadas (Towards an explanatory model of the musical diversity of the Carnival in Puebla and neighbouring areas). In Ernesto Licona Valencia y Martha Ivett Pérez Pérez (coords). El carnaval en la región Puebla y Tlaxcala. Acercamientos etnográficos y multidisciplinares. Puebla, Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura, pp. 581-637, 2018

2016. Villanueva Luis Alejandro, Ana Elizabeth González, María José Sánchez and Uziel, Pérez (2016). El carnaval en el barrio del Alto: construcción sonora y expresiones identitarias (The Carnival in the Alto neighborhood: sound construction and identity expressions), Mirada Antropológica, 10(10): 41-64, 2016