Genes, Geography, and Genealogy of Human Expansions: From Early Humans to New France

A Department of Computational Biology  Seminar

Featuring Dr. Simon Gravel, Associate Professor, Department of Human Genetics, McGill University

Humans have occupied all continents and carry with them genomes received from their ancestors. Each present-day genome thus reflects a myriad interwoven stories of filiation and migration. In this talk, I will present three approaches that seek to unravel these stories and how they relate to geography. I’ll discuss dimension reduction and how it can be used (and misused!) to identify unexpected stories from genetic data. I will then discuss how large genealogical datasets from New France can help us observe the emergence of population differentiation over a few centuries of human evolution in Quebec and test the limits of our models of evolution. I will then discuss a mathematical model of linkage disequilibrium, and what it might tell us about early modern human evolution in Africa. Spoiler: one of these stories will involve a large meteorite impact.

Faculty Host: Dr. Shaila Musharoff