Fernando Villanea

Biography

Fernando Villanea is a population geneticist specializing in human pre-history, interested in topics such as Neanderthal-human admixture, and the effects of Neanderthal and other archaic genome variants inherited by people today.

Dr. Villanea's current research focuses on the Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry in American populations, and how these archaic variants provided the genetic diversity for these populations to adapt to the novel environments found in the American continent.

Selected Publications

• Villanea, F.A., Huerta-Sanchez E., Fox, K. 2021. ABO genetic Variation in Neanderthals and Denisovans. Molecular Biology and Evolution 38 (8), 3373-3382.
• Ahlquist, K.D., Bañuelos, M., Funk, A., Lai, J., Rong, S., Villanea, F.A., Witt, K. 2021. Our Tangled Family Tree: New Genomic Methods Offer Insight into the Legacy of Archaic Admixture. Genome Biology and Evolution.
• Villanea, F.A., Kitchen, A. and Kemp, B.M., 2020. Applications of Bayesian Skyline Plots and Approximate Bayesian Computation for Human Demography. Human Biology, 91(4), pp.279-296.
• Villanea, F.A. and Schraiber, J.G., 2019. Multiple episodes of Interbreeding Between Neanderthal and Modern Humans. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3(1), pp.39-44.

Graduate Studies Information

*Professor Villanea is not accepting Ph.D. applicants​ for Fall 2024