My bio

In 2008, I completed an internship at the Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona, contributing to lab work for the Genographic Project – Europe. I then pursued my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, within Dr. Brigitte Pakendorf’s Comparative Population Linguistics group. My research focused on the history of “Khoisan” populations, including the hunter-gatherer San and pastoralist Khoe communities. This project represented the most comprehensive genetic, cultural, and linguistic survey conducted on these previously understudied groups. Working within a multidisciplinary team, we uncovered remarkable diversity, highlighting a rich and complex prehistory. Additionally, I led several studies on genetic and linguistic variation in sub-Saharan Africa alongside Dr. Pakendorf and Prof. Mark Stoneking, examining populations from Burkina Faso, Zambia, Angola, and Namibia.

In the laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, I have been enhancing protocols for next-generation sequencing technologies. I had the privilege of collaborating with experts from various anthropology-related fields, especially linguists, integrating genetics and linguistics in numerous projects to explore human history and diversity. I earned my PhD in 2013 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bologna on the ERC project “LanGeLin: Meeting Darwin’s Last Challenge: Toward a Global Tree of Human Languages and Genes.” From 2015 to 2018, I coordinated several projects as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, within Prof. Russell Gray’s department. My research focused on the prehispanic history of the Andes and surrounding regions of western South America, collaborating with Dr. Paul Heggarty, and examining the parallels between genetic and linguistic transmission dynamics in human populations.

I have been a group leader at the University of Zurich with Prof. Kentaro Shimizu and Prof. Balthasar Bickel, supervising PhD students Epifanía Arango-Isaza and Anna Graff, and master student projects. I taught the semester module “Introduction to Genetics, Bioanthropology and Linguistics”, along with block courses and seminars on population genetics, bioinformatics, and phylogenetic methods. I continue to collaborate with the University of Zurich, as a member of the NCCR Evolving Language. In 2023 I started an appointment at the University of Cagliari as senior Assistant Professor (RTD-B) in genetics. There, I teach the semester course “Evolutionary Genomics“ for the master in Advanced Cellular Studies, and a module on Genomics for the master of Advanced Biotechnology.

My research develops on two scale: a regional focus in South America, and a global perspective on genetic and linguistic diversity in human populations. I collaborate with universities and research institutions from Europe, the USA and South America on a variety of projects exploring human diversity.