Dr Sarah Johns

About

Sarah Johns is an evolutionary anthropologist with a doctorate from the University of Bristol. Prior to this she completed an MPhil (Cantab. MSc equivalent) in biological anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a BA (hons) in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

With expertise in human sexual behaviour, and women’s reproductive health and well-being, her teaching and research are right at the nexus of medically-aligned social science. Her subject leadership is recognised nationally and she has acted as external examiner at UCL, Bristol, Durham, and Oxford.

She also has extensive higher education leadership experience having held the position of Associate Dean at the University of Kent for a five-year period, where she led the development of the student experience, employability, and admissions strategies across the Faculty of Social Sciences

Research interests

Sarah has broad research interests in reproductive and sexual health, and how evolutionary theory is a useful explanatory framework in this area. She also has expertise in evolutionary approaches to postnatal mental health and postnatal depression.

Additionally, Dr Johns is an expert in teenage motherhood in the UK and carried out some of the first research to explain adolescent pregnancy as an adaptive strategy. Her work has significant policy implications, specifically for governmental teenage pregnancy and maternal mental health strategies. She has also led or contributed to research exploring female genital colouration, women’s preferences in sex tech, weaning in medieval Britain, and how incels engage with evolutionary science.

She has been an Associate Editor for Evolutionary Psychology since 2015 and has supervised 9 research students, more than 25 MSc dissertations and over 150 undergraduate individual research projects.

She holds Affiliate Researcher status at BirthRites which is an Independent Lise Meitner Research Group hosted by the Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Public Engagement

Articles about her research, or to which she has continued expertise ,have been published in New Scientist (feature story and subject of editorial), The Guardian newspaper, The Daily Mail, Metro, THES, Nature Online, the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), The Age (Australia), Hindustan Times, The Times of India (India), The Scotsman, The Times, Pravda (Russia), L’Express (France), The National Post (Canada), Health Magazine (USA), Fit Pregnancy Magazine (USA), Eve Magazine (UK), Pregnancy and Birth Magazine (UK), Stylist Magazine (UK), www.Slate.com, www.Jezebel.com,Yahoo news, and MSN news.

Radio interviews: 'Today Programme' (BBC Radio 4), Radio 5 Live, Radio New Zealand, BBC Gloucester, BBC Swindon, BBC Kent, Radio Dublin, and Radio Australia,

Television: Operation Ouch! with Dr Xand Van Tulleken (Maverick Television – aired March 2021). BBC3 documentary (Zig Zag productions), ABC America “The Revolution”.

Teaching

Sarah is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy which was awarded in recognition of her sustained and successful curriculum and assessment development, extensive external examining experience, and established track record of innovative research-led teaching and assessment. She was a joint recipient (with S. Legge and N. Newton-Fisher) of a teaching prize from the University of Kent for her role in developing the BSc Anthropology and Biological Anthropology courses.

At KMMS She runs a popular SSC titled Human Sexuality and Reproduction: Evolutionary and Biosocial Perspectives and convenes KMMS5015 Reproduction and Endocrinology. She also supervises IRPs as part of the Scientific Basis of Medicine (SBOM) module.

Professional

Ives, G., Johns, S. E. and Deter, C. (2024) ‘Sexual Dimorphism of Pelvic Scarring: A New Method of Adult Biological Sex Estimation’, Journal of Forensic Sciences. Wiley, pp. 1-13. doi: 10.1111/1556-4029.15587.

JOHNS, S.E., & Bushnell, N. (2024). What drives sex toy popularity? A morphological examination of vaginally-insertable products sold by the world’s largest sexual wellness company. The Journal of Sex Research, 61(2), 161-168. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2175193

Bachaud, L., & JOHNS, S.E. (2023). Use and misuse of evolutionary psychology in online manosphere communities: The case of female mating strategies. Evolutionary Human Sciences, e28 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2023.22