PAST: ARCHAEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCES

Prof. David Reich, from the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, USA, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is the world’s leading pioneer in analyzing ancient human DNA.

He is recognized for his computational discovery of intermixing between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens (modern human), which was a step-change in human evolution studies.

His rigorous analysis of the ancient DNA, both generated by others and in his own laboratory, has provided critical insights into the history of human biology. In a 2015 Nature article he was named one of “10 people who matter” in all of science for his contribution to turning ancient DNA data “from niche pursuit to industrial process”.

Prof. Reich has received numerous distinguished awards including the Newcomb Cleveland Prize from AAAS (2010) and the Genzyme Outstanding Achievement in Biomedical Research Award (2007).