Todd R. Disotell
Professor of AnthropologyPh.D. 1992, M.A. 1987, Harvard, B.A. 1985, Cornell.
Office Address: Rufus D. Smith Hall 25 Waverly Place New York, NY 10003
Email:
Phone: 212-998-3811
Fax: 212-995-4014
Personal Homepage
Areas of Research/Interest
physical Anthropology, primate evolution; molecular evolution; genetics and mitochondrial DNA; analytical techniques of phylogenetic systematics; the history of biological anthropology.
External Affiliations
Member - Center for the Study of Human Origins
Publications
Hodgson JA, Disotell TR. Anthropological Genetics: Inferring the History of Our Species Through the Analysis of DNA. Evolution: Education and Outreach, 3:387-398, 2010.
Hodgson JA, Bergey CM, Disotell TR. Neanderthal genome: the ins and outs of African genetic diversity. Current Biology 20:R517-9, 2010.
Burrell AS, Disotell TR. Panmixia Postposted: ancestry-related assortative mating in contemporary human populations. Genome Biology 10:245, 2009.
Li J, Han K, Xing J, Kim H-S, Rogers J, Ryder OA, Disotell T, Yue B, Batzer MA. Phylogeny of the macaques (Cercopithecidae: Macaca) based on Alu elements. Gene 448:242-249, 2009.
Hodgson JA, Sterner KN, Matthews LJ, Burrell AS, Jani RA, Raaum RL, Stewart CB, Disotell TR. Successive radiations, not stasis, in the South American primate fauna. Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences USA. 106:5534-5539, 2009.
Burrell AS, Jolly CJ, Tosi AJ, Disotell TR. Mitochondrial evidence for the hybrid origin of the kipunji, Rungwecebus kipunji (Primates: Papionini). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 51:340-348, 2009.
Di Fiore A, Disotell TR, Gagneux P, Ayala FJ. Primate malarias: Evolution, adaptation, and species jumping. in Huffman MA, Chapman CA (eds). In: Primate Parasite Ecology: The Dynamics and Study of Host-Parasite Relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Bilgin R, Karatas A, Coraman E, Disotell T, Morales JC. Regionally and climatically restricted patterns of distribution of genetic diversity in a migratory bat species, Miniopterus schreibersii (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). BMC Evolutionary Biology 8:209, 2008.
Hodgson JA, Disotell TR. No evidence of Neanderthal contribution to modern human diversity. Genome Biology 9:206, 2008.
Disotell TR. Primates phylogenetics. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Disotell TR. Modern human origins and evolution. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Ting N, Tosi, AJ, Li Y, Zhang Y-P, Disotell TR. Phylogenetic incongruence between nuclear and mitochondrial markers in the Asian colobines and the evolutiona of the langurs and leaf monkeys. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 46:466-474, 2008.
Disotell TR, Tosi AJ. The monkey's perspective. Genome Biology 8:226, 2007.
Disotell TR. Phylogenetic Relationships (Biomolecules). in Henke W, Tattersall I (eds). Handbook of Paleoanthropology, Vol. 3: Phylogeny of Hominids. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2007.
Listman JB, Malison RT, Sughondhabirom A, Yang BZ, Raaum RL, Thavichachart N, Sanichwankul K, Kranzler HR, Tangwonchai S, Mutirangura A, Disotell TR, Gelernter J. Demographic changes and marker properties affect detection of human population differentiation. BMC Genetics 8:21, 2007.
Xing J, Wang H, Zhang Y, Ray DA, Tosi AJ, Disotell TR, Batzer MA. A Mobile Element Based Evolutionary History of Guenons (Tribe Cercopithecini). BMC Biology 5:5, 2007.
Disotell TR. 'Chumanzee' evolution: the urge to diverge and merge. Genome Biology 7:240, 2006.
Gonder MK, Disotell TR, Oates JF. New genetic evidence on the evolution of chimpanzee populations and implications for taxonomy. International Journal of Primatology 27:1103-1127, 2006.
Gonder MK, Disotell TR. Contrasting Phylogeographic Histories of Chimpanzees in Nigeria and Cameroon: A Multi-Locus Genetic Analysis. in Lehman SM and Fleagle J (eds). Primate Biogeography: Progress and Perspectives. New York: Springer, 2006.
Sterner KN, Raaum RL, Zhang Y-P, Stewart C-B, Disotell TR. Mitochondrial Data Support an Odd-Nosed Colobine Clade. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 40:1-7, 2006.
Sutton WK, Knight A, Underhill PA, Neulander JS, Disotell TR, Mountain JL. Toward resolution of the debate regarding purported crypto-Jews in a Spanish-American population: evidence from the Y-chromosome. Annals of Human Biology 33:100-111, 2006.
Xing J, Wang H, Han K, Ray DA, Huang CH, Chemnick LG, Stewart C-B, Disotell TR, Ryder OA, Batzer MA. A Mobile Element Based Phylogeny of Old World Monkeys. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37:872-80, 2005.
Tosi AJ, Detwiler KM, Disotell TR. X-chromosomal window into the evolutionary history of the guenons (Primates: Cercopithecini). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 36:58-66.
Tosi AJ, Detwiler KM, Disotell TR. Y-chromosomal markers suitable for non-invasive studies of guenon hybridization. International Journal of Primatology 26:685-696, 2005.
Raina SZ, Faith JJ, Disotell TR, Seligmann H, Stewart CB, Pollock DD. Evolution of base-substiution gradients in primate mitochondrial genomes. Genome Research 15:665-673, 2005.
Raaum RL, Sterner KN, Noviello CM, Disotell TR, Stewart C-B. Catarrhine Primate Divergence Dates Estimated from Complete Mitochondrial Genomes: Concordance with Fossil and Nuclear DNA Evidence. Journal of Human Evolution 48:237-257, 2005.
Current News / Projects
Updated September 2010
I began 2010 with trips to San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences and Houston’s Museum of Natural Science, lecturing for the Leakey Foundation’s Speaker Series on Human Origins
Mirroring last year’s spring break trip to Belize, this past spring I traveled to Ghana with sophomore CAS Presidential Honors Scholars to help build a kindergarten and lavatory for school children in Volta Province.
Over the last two summers, my graduate students and I taught bioinformatics and programming to six high school students who participate in research through the Harlem Children’s Society. I was recently interviewed on NPR’s WNYC and our own WNYU about the program. I have also been an active participant in the Bard Prison Initiative teaching courses at Bayview Medium Security Women’s Prison in Manhattan for the past two years.
My research group has been very active in training students from both New York-area universities (Columbia, Stony Brook, Rutgers, and Princeton) as well as foreign institutions. We are also fully involved in the training and supervision of graduate students in our department's M.A. program in skeletal biology.
While my research centers around the evolution of Old World monkeys and apes, I am involved in studies on human population history, ape and monkey conservation and behavioral genetics, forensic applications, cryptozoology, and molecular evolutionary studies of diseases such as AIDS and malaria.
Current projects include further work on the systematics of the manabeys supported by the National Science Foundation. The Wenner-Gren Foundation is supporting research on the origins and relationships of the monkeys on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea with respect to mainland populations. We are about to embark on a new project using Next Generation Sequencing technologies to characterize the genomes of baboons supported by the Leakey Foundation.
My past and future teaching involves courses in Emerging Diseases, Human Variation, Race, Primate Molecular Evolution, Molecular Techniques, Phylogenetic Analysis, Genetics and Human Variation, Human Evolution, and Human Origins.
I am on sabbatical during the fall of 2010 and working on several manuscripts, grants, and a book on the evolution of health and disease.
