Reconstructing Human Evolutionary History
Exploring human evolutionary history was previously limited to the rare discovery of skeletal remains, however sediment DNA has provided an additional tool for tracking ancient humans across time and space. In addition, sediment DNA contains DNA from many taxa allowing us to also identify changes in faunal composition. I am interested in combining DNA from skeletal remains and sediments to increase our understanding of past human populations, the tools and artefacts they created, and their environments.
Exploring human evolutionary history was previously limited to the rare discovery of skeletal remains, however sediment DNA has provided an additional tool for tracking ancient humans across time and space. In addition, sediment DNA contains DNA from many taxa allowing us to also identify changes in faunal composition. I am interested in combining DNA from skeletal remains and sediments to increase our understanding of past human populations, the tools and artefacts they created, and their environments.
Improving Success Rates for Historical Human Identifications
Human identification (HID) casework typically encompasses identifications from historical contexts, natural and manmade disasters, past and current conflicts, and cold cases. Often the DNA recovered from these remains is highly degraded and not subtable for conventional forensic DNA typing methods. I am interested in testing and developing new methods to improve success rates with these challenging samples. This work includes quantifying the accuracy of different computational methods for identifying individuals when using low quality DNA.
Human identification (HID) casework typically encompasses identifications from historical contexts, natural and manmade disasters, past and current conflicts, and cold cases. Often the DNA recovered from these remains is highly degraded and not subtable for conventional forensic DNA typing methods. I am interested in testing and developing new methods to improve success rates with these challenging samples. This work includes quantifying the accuracy of different computational methods for identifying individuals when using low quality DNA.
Method Development for Degraded DNA Analyses
Ancient DNA and HID casework both work with degraded DNA. To expand the types of questions that we can answer in both disciplines I am interested in improving computational and laboratory methods for working with this challenging substrate. This includes developing methods that lower costs, quantify potential contamination, and provide benchmarks for informed decision making and interpretation of different analyses.
Ancient DNA and HID casework both work with degraded DNA. To expand the types of questions that we can answer in both disciplines I am interested in improving computational and laboratory methods for working with this challenging substrate. This includes developing methods that lower costs, quantify potential contamination, and provide benchmarks for informed decision making and interpretation of different analyses.