Kyle Harper is Professor of Classics and Letters at the University of Oklahoma and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. A historian whose work seeks to integrate the natural sciences into the study of the human past, his main research interests include the history of infectious diseases and climate change and their impact on human societies. More broadly, he writes on the history of humans as agents of ecological change, and investigates how issues such as biodiversity, health and sustainable development can be approached from a historical perspective. He is the author of four books, including Slavery in the Late Roman World, From Shame to Sin, The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality, Plagues upon the Earth, Disease and the Course of Human History, and The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, translated into twelve languages, including in French under the title Comment l'Empire romain s'est effondré, La Découverte, 2019. Kyle Harper has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Dumbarton Oaks Institute. His next book, The Last Animal, is a history of human impact on global biodiversity from the origins of our species to the present day.

Kyle Harper has been invited to hold the annual Avenir Commun Durable chair at the Collège de France for 2023-2024.