Agnar Sturla Helgason

My focus of research has been in the related fields of biological anthropology and human evolutionary genetics, involving the processing of big data – including whole genome sequences, microarray genotypes, genealogies, proteomics and other phenotypes. One key area is the inference of population history, particularly genetic drift and migration patterns, based on DNA sequence variation in both contemporary and ancient individuals, with a major focus on Iceland, but also the British Isles, Scandinavia, Pakistan, Africa, Inuit from Greenland and Canada and archaic humans. Another is the use of genealogical data to make inferences about migration, drift and mating patterns in human populations. Third, is the rate and nature of mutations in different parts of the genome, including autosomal chromosomes, the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, along with the rate and nature of other key sources of genetic diversity: recombination and gene conversion. A fourth key strand in my research has been to bring evolutionary insights into disease studies, in particular to understand how mutation, drift, selection and migration have helped shape the fate of the sequence variants that affect the health and biological diversity of humans and other species. These research themes have been developed in over 120 papers published in many of the major scientific journals.