Research in my lab aims to understand how organisms adapt to their environment with a focus on the evolution of complex, polygenic traits. We use population, evolutionary, and functional genomic approaches to understand the effects of past selection on modern medically-relevant phenotypes, testing evolutionary hypotheses in humans, non-human primates, and disease vectors. More broadly, we aim to understand how ecological, behavioral, cultural, or anthropogenic factors impact adaptive evolution. Current major projects include an investigation of human adaptations to life in the rainforests of Africa, including the evolution of small body size (the “pygmy” phenotype) in rainforest hunter-gatherers.
Program Faculty
- Christina Bergey
- Assistant Professor
- Department: Department of Genetics
- Graduate Program(s): Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
- Major Research Interest(s): Computational Biology, Disease genetics, Evolution
- Research Techniques: Bioinformatics / Computational, Genetics, Genomics, Transcriptomics
- Research Organism(s): Humans, in silico
- Phone: 1.8484459628
- Email:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - School of Arts and Sciences
- Division of Life Sciences
- Nelson Biology Laboratories, Room B416
- 604 Allison Road
- Piscataway, NJ 08854-8000
- Key Words: Evolutionary genomics, population genomics, human evolution, rainforest hunter-gatherers, primates, vector biology
- Lab Site URL