Graham Michael Coop
Evolutionary geneticist Graham Coop is professor of evolution and ecology and director of the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. He studies how genetics and environmental variation shape populations. He uses a combination of mathematical modeling and data analysis to tackle questions about the causes and consequences of genetic variation within individuals, populations and species.
Coop has been involved in a number of groundbreaking studies in human evolution, including a 2006 study that was chosen as one of Science’s top ten breakthroughs of the year for revealing that humans and Neanderthals diverged nearly half a million years ago. Other breakthroughs from Coop’s lab include a 2013 study which showed that almost everyone of European descent can trace their ancestry back to a common set of ancestors who lived around 1,000 years ago, and a 2020 study showing how Neanderthal DNA is slowly being purged from the human genome as a result of natural selection.
Coop’s lab studies a range of evolutionary questions, not just about humans: areas of inquiry include the co-evolution of humans and maize in the Americas, how walnuts evolved to alternate sexes, and how genomics and climate interact to prevent the spread of African honey bees at high latitudes.