CHES Faculty Member
- Christina Bergey
- Assistant Professor, Genetics
- Focus Area: Evolutionary and Modern Human Genetics, Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Email: christina.bergey@rutgers.edu
- ACADEMIC BIOGRAPHY:
- 2016-2019 Post-doctoral Researcher (NIH NRSA Post-doctoral Fellow), Penn State University
- 2015-2016 Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Notre Dame
- 2015 Ph.D. Biological Anthropology, New York University
- 2011 M.A. Biological Anthropology, New York University
- 2009 B.A. Anthropology, New York University
- CURRENT PROJECTS:
Christina Bergey's research aims to understand how organisms adapt to their environment with a focus on the evolution of complex, polygenic traits. To do so, her group uses 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, Dr. Bergey and her team want to understand how ecological, behavioral, cultural, or anthropogenic factors impact adaptive evolution.
Bergey's current major projects include:
1. Investigating human adaptations to life in the rainforests of Africa, including the evolution of small body size (the “pygmy” phenotype) in rainforest hunter-gatherers,
2. Understanding the co-evolution of malaria with its human and primate hosts and mosquito vector, and
3. Exploring how primates have adapted to their environments with a particular focus on gene flow between species in Africa.