Event Details

Courtney Hofman is an assistant professor of Anthropology and co-director at the University of Oklahoma's Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology and Microbiome Research. Dr. Hofman has conducted research that integrates interdisciplinary methods and fields, including genomics, ancient DNA, proteomics, and archaeology to explore human-environment interactions on two very different scales. First, she investigates human-wildlife interactions and their influence on changing environments over the past millennia to inform conservation decisions. Second, Dr. Hofman conducts research on the evolution of the human microbiome using dental calculus and paleofeces from archaeological contexts. Dr. Hofman completed her PhD at the University of Maryland in collaboration with the Center for Conservation Genomics at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Anthropology department at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, where she is also a research associate.

Dr. Christina Warinner earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 2010 and received postdoctoral training in genomics and proteomics at the University of Zurich (2010-2012) and the University of Oklahoma (2012-2014). In 2014, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Anthropology and was awarded a Presidential Research Professorship at the University of Oklahoma (OU). In 2016, she was made W2 Group Leader of Microbiome Sciences at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), and in 2018 she was promoted to University Professor in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. Since 2019, she is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. Warinner specializes in biomolecular archaeology, with an emphasis on reconstructing the prehistory of human foods and the evolution of the microbiome. She is known for her pioneering work in ancient DNA and proteins research, which has contributed to the study of prehistoric human health, ancestral human oral and gut microbiota, the origins of dairying, and past human migrations. She is a 2012 TED Fellow, and her TED Talks on ancient dental calculus and the evolution of the human diet have been viewed more than 2 million times. In addition to her research, she is actively engaged in public outreach and created the Adventures in Archaeological Science coloring book, now available in thirty languages, including many indigenous and underrepresented languages.

Recent technological advances in genetics, such as high-throughput sequencing (HTS), have radically transformed ancient DNA (aDNA) research, making it more accessible and affordable for archaeologists than ever before. This seminar will provide a brief introduction to the field of paleogenomics, with an emphasis on the range of questions that can be addressed using current technologies, as well as some potential challenges. We will also explore how much an aDNA study actually costs and the role of student training in aDNA labs. Participants will learn how to identify questions that are amenable to genetic analysis and acquire strategies for how to set up successful collaborations with aDNA labs.