User:Carlos Eduardo G. Amorim

My research interests involve the understanding of how neutral, adaptive, and cultural processes have shaped the genetic diversity of humans and other apes. My undergrad academic training and research experience was focused on management of endangered species and reforestation of damaged areas in Central Brazil. This experience yielded one publication in a local journal and a great foundation for my future work as a biologist. During my masters, I started to work with population genetics, using genetic markers to unravel the demographic history of Afro-Brazilian communities. For that, I employed genetic and demographic data, in an inter-disciplinary approach that resulted in the publication of a first authored paper and book chapter, as well as the participation in an international conference on human migrations based in Kansas University. During my Ph.D., I decided to work with Professor Francisco Salzano, who had been working with Native American populations for over 45 years and is considered the “father” of evolutionary genetics in Brazil, having been studied with Dr. Dobzhansky. There, I did research on population genetics of Amerindian populations and published, as the first author, four papers (one still in press) and another one as a second author, all on Amerindian evolutionary genetics. Near the end of my Ph.D., I received a grant to spend six months with Professor Laurent Excoffier in the University of Bern (Switzerland), where I first worked with population genomics and had the first contact with new methods on evolutionary genetics. The paper in collaboration with Prof. Excoffier on human adaptations to the tropical forest environment is in press and we are working on a second paper on the impact of long-distance dispersal on levels of introgressions. After having this experience abroad in a high-level research group, my understanding of evolutionary biology has changed. I realized that, to reach the next level, I needed to look for a group that had a very strong foundation in theoretical and empirical biology, that was world renowned for their work in evolutionary genetics, and where I could develop my computational and mathematical skills. This is why I chose the Przeworski Lab. Among my specific interests is natural selection, and Professor Molly Przeworski is senior and/or co-author of some of the most important papers on the issue. Besides that, her lab is known for developing methods for understanding of key evolutionary processes such as recombination, natural selection, and more recently also mutation. I was granted a two years Science Without Borders Fellowship from the Brazilian Government and decided to spend that time at her lab to learn more about computational biology, evolutionary genetics, and genomics.