Photograph by David Evans
Photograph by David Evans
This scientist, author, and documentary filmmaker has dedicated much of his career to studying humankind’s family tree and closing the gaps in our knowledge of human migration. Now a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Spencer Wells is spearheading the Genographic Project, an extension of the work he began and documented in his first book and PBS film, The Journey of Man. His hope is that the project will capture an invaluable genetic snapshot of humanity before modern-day influences erase it forever.
Wells’s own journey of discovery began at the University of Texas, where he enrolled at 16, majored in biology, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa three years later. He then pursued his Ph.D. at Harvard University.
Wells conducted postdoctoral training at Standford University’s School of Medicine with Luca Cavalli-Sforza, considered the “father of anthropological genetics.” It was there that Wells became committed to studying genomic diversity in indigenous populations and unraveling age-old mysteries about early human migration.
Presentation Topics
Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project
Join Wells on an epic journey that spans the globe, using DNA to trace the migration routes of our ancient ancestors and revealing the incredible tapestry of human diversity created along the way.
Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
Terrorism, pandemic disease, and global warming—what do these have in common? To find the answer we need to go back ten millennia, to the wheat fields of the Fertile Crescent and the rice paddies of southern China. It was then that our species made a radical shift in its way of life, progressing from a largely hunter-gatherer society, eking out a living within the constraints of the world around us, to controlling our food supply by domesticating animals and plants. Journey with Dr. Wells on a 10,000-year tour of human history as he charts the rise to power of Homo agriculturis and the effects this radical shift in lifestyle has had on our species, and speculates on where we might be headed in the future.
Learn More About Spencer:
National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Profile
NGM: The Big Idea: Genography (August 2009)
National Geographic News: Phoenician Blood Endures 3,000 Years, DNA Study Shows
Listen to Radio Interview With Spencer Wells
Boyd Matson Interviews Spencer for NG Weekend Radio Show
The Human Family Tree retraces the deepest branches of the human species to reveal interconnected stories hidden in our genes—using diverse neighbors from a single street who represent a microcosm of the world.
All humans share some common bits of DNA, passed down to us from our African ancestors. Geneticist Spencer Wells talks about how his Genographic Project will use this shared DNA to figure out how we are – in all our diversity – truly connected.
Dr. Spencer Wells, the program’s director and a Society “explorer-in-residence,” tells NPR‘s Alex Chadwick the Genographic Project will be the largest and most comprehensive public database of anthropological genetic information ever compiled. He calls the DNA molecule a “time machine” that can answer the most basic questions of human history: Where did I come from, and how did I get here?
It’s a question we all ask: Where do I come from? Geneticist Spencer Wells and a team of scientists are attempting to answer that question by collecting DNA samples from people all over the world.
Somewhere between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, Africa saved Homo sapiens from extinction. Charting the DNA shared by more than six billion people, a population geneticist—and director of the Genographic Project—suggests what humanity “owes” its first home.
“Genographic” is not showing up in many dictionaries yet. But two global institutions, IBM and the National Geographic Society, hope the idea it conveys becomes well known in every corner of the planet.
In, perhaps, the largest experiment of its kind, National Geographic and IBM have teamed up to collect DNA samples from around the world to learn more about your ancestors, where they came from and when.
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