John Wakeley

Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Professor John Wakeley with short hair and light shirt, standing in front of a tree
Biological Laboratories 16 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-1564
wakeley@fas.harvard.edu
Wakeley Lab

Faculty Support: Erin Ciccone

 

Population samples of DNA sequences contain information about both contemporary and ancient processes and events. I use mathematical models to describe how these current and historical factors conspire to produce the patterns of genetic variation which are readily observable among individuals within species. I employ both analytical and computational techniques to make inferences about these factors from patterns of genetic variation. The field I work in is called Theoretical Population Genetics. Recently I have been studying how the genealogy of individuals in a population affects gene genealogies and patterns of genetic variation in samples from the population.  

Recent Publications

Newman M, Wakeley J, Fan W-T. 2025. Conditional gene genealogies given the population pedigree for a diploid Moran model with selfing. Theoretical Population Biology 165:29-44.

Fan W-T, Wakeley J. 2024. Latent mutations in the ancestries of alleles under selection. Theoretical Population Biology 158:1-20.

Diamantidis D, Fan W-T, Birkner M, Wakeley J. 2024. Bursts of coalescence within population pedigrees whenever big families occur. Genetics 227:iyae030.

Rivas-González I, Schierup MH, Wakeley J, Hobolth A. 2024. TRAILS: Tree reconstruction of ancestry using incomplete lineage sorting. PLOS Genetics 20(1):1-21.

Wakeley J, Fan W-T, Koch E, Sunyaev S. 2023. Recurrent mutation in the ancestry of a rare variant. Genetics 224:iyad049.