Wakeley Lab

Welcome

We are devoted to the study of theoretical population genetics. The goal of population genetics is to identify and understand the forces that produce and maintain genetic variation in natural populations. These forces include mutation (also recombination and gene conversion), natural selection, various kinds of population structure (e.g. subdivision with migration), and the random fluctuations of gene frequencies through time known as genetic drift. We study these forces mathematically, using both analysis and computation. We also develop statistical methods to make inferences about these forces from DNA sequences or other kinds of genetic data. A recent area of focus has been to describe how the genealogy of individuals in a population, also called the population pedigree, affects gene genealogies and patterns of genetic variation in samples from the population.