Who's Who At Family Tree DNA

Michael Hammer

Mike Hammer is FTDNA's Chief Scientist, and member of the Scientific Advisory Board.

A Biotechnology Research Scientist at the University of Arizona with appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, as well as Director of the Genomic Analysis and Technology Core facility, Dr. Hammer received his PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley and was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton and Harvard Universities. He co-authored the first paper showing that present-day Cohanim are descended from a single male ancestor.

Bruce Walsh

Bruce Walsh is our Chief Population Geneticist and member of the Scientific Advisory Board.

An expert on population genetics and statistical applications in genetics and co-author of one of the leading texts in this area, Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits, Lynch and Walsh, 1997, Dr. Walsh served on the editorial boards of the journals Genetics; Genetical Research; Theoretical Population Biology; Evolution and The American Naturalist. He received his PhD in Genetics from the University of Washington.

Doron Behar

Doron Behar is our Chief mtDNA Scientist and member of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Population geneticist and Senior Physician at the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the Rambam Medical Center, Haifa. Dr. Behar has pioneered scientific research on DNA variations of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome in Jewish and Near Eastern populations. Dr. Behar is currently focusing on large scale mtDNA-based population genetic studies.

Theodore G. Schurr

Tad Schurr is a member of FTDNA's Scientific Advisory Board.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Schurr spent the last 12 years investigating the genetic prehistory of Asia and the Americas. He has worked on the mapping and identification of genes that contribute to cardiovascular disease risk in Native American groups, and received his PhD in Anthropology from Emory University.

Alan J. Redd

Alan Redd is a member of FTDNA's Scientific Advisory Board.

Postdoctoral Fellow in the Genomic Analysis and Technology Core Facility, University of Arizona. Dr. Redd has 15 years of experience studying mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA variation in populations from the Americas, Oceania, and the Indian subcontinent. He recently published a manuscript about the identification and characterization of novel STRs for use in forensics.

Thomas Krahn

Thomas Krahn is a Member of FTDNA's Scientific Advisory Board.

Thomas is the Technical Laboratory Manager of FTDNA's Genomics Research Center in Houston. Graduated from the Technical University of Berlin with an MSC (Dipl. Ing.) in biotechnology and genetics. Thomas specializes in complex kinship testing and family reconstructions. He is an expert in developing new molecular biological methods and assays to resolve questions of biological heritage.

Connie Bormans

Dr. Bormans received her Ph.D. in genetics from Texas A&M University where she developed new STR marker panels for use in plant breeding. As a Research Fellow at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, she managed three large scale projects to identify genes related to cardiovascular disease. She is currently focused on developing efficient methods for large scale genotyping projects using both direct sequencing and STR analysis.

Matthew Kaplan

Doctoral candidate at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, with over 10 years of hands-on experience in Molecular Biology.

Bennett Greenspan

An entrepreneur and life-long genealogy enthusiast, Mr. Greenspan founded Family Tree DNA in 1999, turning - dare we say - a hobby into a full-time vocation. Together with Max Blankfeld, they founded in 1997 GoCollege.com a website for college-bound students which survived the .COM implosion.

Max Blankfeld

Originally from Brazil, received his BBA from Fundação Getulio Vargas, and MBA from Rice University. While his first college education was in the field of Aeronautical Engineering, he gave it up to become a foreign correspondent. After that, he started and managed several successful ventures in the area of public relations as well as consumer goods both in Brazil and the US.