Martin Sikora
Martin Sikora
Denmark
Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
E-mail: martin.sikora@bio.ku.dk
"Seeing the human history through the glasses of biology "
30th July 15:20-15:40 (Open to all)
Venue: The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
(Drammensveien 78, Oslo)
Ancient genomics, the reconstruction of whole genomes from ancient DNA, is a revolutionary tool that has transformed studies of the evolutionary history of our species. In this talk I will discuss what we can learn about human history from ancient DNA sequencing of human remains, ranging from the reconstruction of past human migrations, social organization of pre-historic societies to the origins and spread of major human pathogens.
About Martin Sikora
I am a population geneticist studying human evolutionary history. A particular interest is in reconstructing population structure and dispersals of both ancient humans and their associated pathogens, to understand how their interaction has shaped their genetic diversity. In order to achieve this goal, I use computational and statistical modeling of large-scale genomics datasets, combining both present-day and ancient DNA.
I obtained a Master’s of Science in Biotechnology from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Vienna, Austria in 2004, and a PhD in Genetics from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, in 2010. Between 2010 and 2014 I was a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Genetics, Stanford University, USA. Since then I have held an appointment as Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.