PhD student Emmanuel receives Leakey Foundation Baldwin fellowship!

PhD student Emmanuel Kipruto Ngetich was awarded a Baldwin Fellowship by the Leakey Foundation. This fellowship will fund Emmanuel for the next year as he embarks on his dissertation research.

Emmanuel’s focuses on the Abasuba people of Mfangano Island in Lake Victoria, combining modern and ancient genomic analysis with oral history to trace the origins and interactions of these communities. He aims to reconstruct patterns of population movement and genetic variation from the Late Pleistocene through the Holocene, using both contemporary DNA samples and ancient human remains from the island. The project addresses a significant gap in the global representation of African genomes and contributes to a deeper understanding of how historical migrations have shaped present-day populations in Eastern Africa. Emmanuel is also deeply committed to community-engaged research, having developed the project in close partnership with the Mfangano Island community and the National Museums of Kenya.

Emmanuel is co-advised by Dr. Kieran McNulty in the UMN Department of Evolution. Ecology and Behavior. Congratulations Emmanuel!