Andrew Kitchen

Andrew Kitchen
Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology
University of Iowa
USA

Biography

Andrew Kitchen is a anthropological geneticist with interests in human population history and the origins of human infectious disease. He use an evolutionary perspective to investigate the processes that have produced observed, modern distributions of human genetic and pathogen/parasite diversity. He primarily employ computational methods (e.g., phylogenetics, population genetics, and simulation) to the analysis of novel and publicly available genetic and cultural data.His current research projects involve: 1) identifying the major historical events / determinants of Native American diversity, focusing on the original peopling event ~15 KYA and the post-Columbian population crash; 2) investigating the effect of human demographic history on the evolution of human pathogens and parasites, including the effect of agricultural lifestyles on the human microbiome; 3) understanding the molecular evolution and macro-evolutionary processes affecting pathogen genetic diversity; and 4) the application of evolutionary principles to infer the complex history of human cultural diversity, especially with regard to the construction of language phylogenies.