Sam Passmore
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sampassmore.bsky.social
Sam Passmore
@sampassmore.bsky.social

Research Fellow with the Evolution of Cultural Diversity Initiative @ ANU

www.sampassmore.com
www.kinbank.net

Kinship | Language | Methods | Diversity
The despair when your niche interest appears has a brief appearance on social media but you miss it by half a day because of time zones / your own kin-ties get up at 4am so you go to bed early 😅

Please check out kinbank.net for all your kinship terminology variational needs!
October 29, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Solomon Island Pijin has increased its first-language speaker pop. by 8,281.85% since 1976, according the Solomon Island Census. In 1976, 1,212 people listed their first language as SIP, but in 2019, that number had increased to 101,588. An incredible transformation of the linguistic environment.
solomons.gov.sb
October 8, 2025 at 1:35 AM
NEW PAPER: English acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two Pacific Creoles (Tok Pisin 🇵🇬 & Bislama 🇻🇺). We show that applying existing research to low-resource languages can help speed up their study, particularly for English Creoles.

#ACL2025
aclanthology.org/2025.acl-lon...
English-based acoustic models perform well in the forced alignment of two English-based Pacific Creoles
Sam Passmore, Lila San Roque, Kirsty Gillespie, Saurabh Nath, Kira Davey, Keira Mullan, Tim Cawley, Jennifer Biggs, Rosey Billington, Bethwyn Evans, Nick Thieberger, Danielle Barth. Proceedings of the...
aclanthology.org
July 27, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
The 2025 Cultural Evolution Society awards are now open for applications!
-Outreach Award (2 awards, up to $2,500 each) forms.gle/Eq6BhtnptQLQ...
-ECR Grant (2 awards, up to $3,000 each) forms.gle/69DpptguwRqN...
-Building Research Capacity Award (1 award, up to $6,000) forms.gle/ZLGEW612GbZ4...
ACE Outreach Awards
CES will give out two awards of up to $2500 each to support activities that translate cultural evolution research for a non-academic audience or for students outside of the field of cultural evolution...
forms.gle
April 11, 2025 at 9:19 AM
NEW PAPER: Linguistics has long debated the scientific cost of narrow sampling, but growing language endangerment makes this debate urgent. We compare studied and unstudied languages in child language acquisition to assess how narrow sampling limits our understanding
doi.org/10.1162/opmi...
April 10, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Please repost - keen to find someone grear
Two Fully-Funded PhD positions at Auckland Uni!

Come help us understand the past and future of global cultural and linguistic diversity.

#linguistics #evolution #academia #phd

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
April 6, 2025 at 6:03 PM
More great PhD opportunities, this time with @felicitymeakins.bsky.social

study.uq.edu.au/study-option...
Dingo Lingo: Australia's past through the lens of biology, language & music
study.uq.edu.au
March 28, 2025 at 7:11 AM
If you're looking for a fun PhD project - I don't think you'll find many better than this!
Two Fully-Funded PhD positions at Auckland Uni!

Come help us understand the past and future of global cultural and linguistic diversity.

#linguistics #evolution #academia #phd

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
March 27, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
You can submit paper proposals here: worldarchaeologicalcongress.com/wac10/papers/
March 18, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Reminder of this #culturalevolution starter pack

go.bsky.app/6mZJyQq
February 14, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
A reminder that we are currently accepting submissions for a special issue on 'Advances in the Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia' in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. Submissions are due February 28 and include any human and animal related studies.
January 13, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
🎉 Transform Indigenous genomics! Join SING Australia, a week-long workshop in Gimuy/Cairns (21–25 July 2025). 🌏 Learn lab skills, ethics, & more. Open to Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders in health, science, & humanities. Apply now & shape the future! 🧬✨
January 6, 2025 at 1:45 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Lovely blog post about our recent paper in Ornithology (@amornith.bsky.social)! We applied agent-based models and machine learning to 36 yrs of mourning warbler song, and found evidence that males have a learning bias for more complex syllables: americanornithology.org/cultural-evo...
Cultural evolution in song of Geothlypis philadelphia (Mourning Warbler) - American Ornithological Society
We used a long-term database of songs recorded over 36 years from throughout the breeding range of Geothlypis philadelphia (Mourning Warbler) to answer questions about the current and historical patte...
americanornithology.org
December 19, 2024 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Reupping this POSTDOC position
- deadline Dec 20th

Some more info 👇 1/3
Modeller? Interested in linguistic diversity? *Postdoc* position on DYNAMICS OF MULTILINGUALISM available in my group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... 2 yrs working with an international & interdisciplinary team led by @justynaolko.bsky.social
Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
www.eva.mpg.de
December 6, 2024 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
1️⃣ An agent-based model simulates a dynamic population of professional speed climbers.
2️⃣ BayesFlow handles amortized parameter estimation in the SBI setting.

📣 Shoutout to @masonyoungblood.bsky.social & @sampassmore.bsky.social

📄 Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
💻 Code: github.com/masonyoungbl...
December 10, 2024 at 1:34 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
One of the most surprising uses of simulation-based inference: agent based models of olympic speed climbers
osf.io/preprints/ps...
December 10, 2024 at 12:33 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Just released a big update to my R package `RCLDF` for reading Cross-lInguistic Data Files':

github.com/SimonGreenhi...
December 2, 2024 at 2:06 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Modeller? Interested in linguistic diversity? *Postdoc* position on DYNAMICS OF MULTILINGUALISM available in my group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... 2 yrs working with an international & interdisciplinary team led by @justynaolko.bsky.social
Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
www.eva.mpg.de
November 19, 2024 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Missed early-bird registration for #ALS2024? You can still register for the conference - tomorrow is the last day!
Registration
ALS 2024 Registration
als.asn.au
November 14, 2024 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
For Halloween, I made a video game about fairies who race in pushchairs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACj-... You can play it online for free! correlation-machine.com/PramTurismo/
Prams will crash! So might the game!
#gamedev #SpaceGhostTrain #prams
Pram Turismo (Space Ghost Train XI)
YouTube video by SeanGeraintRoberts
www.youtube.com
October 31, 2024 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Fully-funded PhD position available on the cultural evolution of tea!

With me, Sabine Parrish, and David Burslem at the University of Aberdeen (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿), come combine anthropology and biology to think about why people drink tea and how that may change in the future.

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
People and tea: past, present, and future at University of Aberdeen on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - People and tea: past, present, and future at University of Aberdeen , listed on FindAPhD.com
www.findaphd.com
October 29, 2024 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Sam Passmore
Now an additional piece up with this excellent graphic summary.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidd...
October 16, 2024 at 8:37 PM