Overview

Neanderthals were our closest evolutionary cousins, inhabiting large parts of Europe and Asia for hundreds-of-thousands of years. We now know that humans and Neanderthals interbred, and that almost all modern human populations carry some amount of Neanderthal ancestry in their DNA.

My research in the Akey lab has focused on understanding the distribution of this Neanderthal ancestry across the globe and across our genome. Identifying these patterns promises immense insight into human history and evolution, and modern human health and disease.

You can learn more about my research in the articles below.