Maria A. Nieves-Colón
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Ancient DNA from Puerto Rico study covered by press in USA and PR

11/10/2019

 
Our research on ancient DNA from Puerto Rico has featured in several media outlets, in Puerto Rico and the USA since the pre-print was released on Biorxiv ths past September.

1) The Atlantic

Our study was beautifully described by  Ed Yong, science writer for The Atlantic in his piece How Ancient DNA Can Help Recast Colonial History. The article details our main findings and its ramifications for reconstructing the pre-contact histories of Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean islanders.
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2) CBS News

I was interviewed by CBS News in a segment discussing the importance of our work for understanding pre-colonial history in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. This was my first TV newscast interview and it was a lot of fun! Thanks to CBSN anchor Vladimir Duthiers and producer Olivia Wilson for their great reporting on this segment. You can see the video below or access it on  the CBSN page here. 
DNA test shows P.R. tribe didn't die out
A  new study found ancient indigenous DNA in Puerto Ricans, breaking a previous myth that the Taino tribe were eradicated in centuries ago. Maria Nieves-Colon joined CBSN to discuss her findings and why the discovery may help correct Puerto Rican history.
Caption written by CBS News, accessed on Sept. 25, 2019:
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/new-research-links-ancient-indigenous-dna-to-living-puerto-ricans/

3) El Nuevo Día

El Nuevo Día is Puerto Rico's main newspaper. Our study was described by journalist J. Miguel Santiago Colón in his article Aclaran el rol taino en la genética. For a PDF copy of the article click here. 
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4) Orlando Spectrum News 13

Orlando Channel Spectrum 13 ran a story on our work in their evening news Genetic link found between modern-day Puerto Ricans, ancient Indigenous Tribe. Thanks to reporter Jesse Canales for the interview.
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5) El Adoquín Times

El Adoquín Times is a cultural newspaper in Puerto Rico. Reporter Marcos Del Valle interviewed me for the article ADN Taino on pages 4-5 of the November 2019 edition. Our research is also the inspiration for the cover art on this special edition commemorating the 500 years of the founding of the city of San Juan.

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Ancient DNA study from Puerto Rico pre-print now available

9/12/2019

 
A preprint based on my doctoral research   "Ancient DNA reconstructs the genetic legacies of pre-contact Puerto Rico communities” is now available on Bioarxiv here. In this work we use paleogenomics to reconstruct the genetic diversity of ancient Indigenous peoples from Puerto Rico and examine their origins, their relationships to other ancient Caribbean communities and their genetic links to present-day Puerto Ricans. This work was conducted with an interdisciplinary team including anthropologists, archaeologists and genomic scientists based in Puerto Rico, the United States and Australia.  I describe the main points of our work in this twitter thread which you can also access through thread reader here.  I am very excited to see this project come to fruition!
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Teaching paleogenomics at the National School of Anthropology in Mexico City

5/22/2019

 
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A few weeks ago, my former PhD adviser Anne Stone and myself had an awesome experience teaching the invited course Paleogenomics and Anthropology at the National School of Anthropology (ENAH) in Mexico City. We were invited as part of the invited professors program sponsored by the undergraduate and postgraduate programs in Physical Anthropology at ENAH, as well as the Molecular Genetics laboratory.  Our colleagues Maria Ávila-Arcos, Viridiana Villa, Miriam Bravo from LIIGH-UNAM, and Kelly Blevins from ASU also helped us teach this course.

The course was a week-long intensive featuring theory lectures, where we discussed basics of genomics, ancient DNA methods, and ethics among other topics. We also had laboratory and data analysis practical sessions. Tutorials and course materials for these practicals are freely available on my GitHub page here. 

The INAH Boletín for May 2019 features some media coverage of these training efforts here, including interviews with our hosts faculty members Victor Acuña-Alonzo and Maria Eugenia Peña from ENAH.

As part of the events of our week in Mexico City we also gave two keynote speeches at the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico (MNA) within a series called "El uso del ADN antiguo en el estudio de la historia humana" (The use of ancient DNA in the study of human history). The talks were recorded and live-streamed and you can watch them on the INAH TV youtube page here.  The round table following our talks focuses on the ethics and practice of ancient DNA research, especially within the context of Mexico and Latin America, and features a rockstar panel completely formed of great women scientists all at different career levels.

​This course was a fun and extremely rewarding experience. I learned as much from the students as they did from us. Really looking forward to the next adventure with our friends at ENAH!

**Update**: October 2019

The National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico (MNA) YouTube channel ​interviewed us about our work last May and the video was released this month! Check it out here: La investigación antropológica en tiempos del ADN antiguo (En español).

Quoted in The Atlantic

11/8/2018

 
I was quoted by Ed Yong from The Atlantic in his recent article describing two recent genetic studies which have upended our understanding of the first peopling of the Americas. I was not an author on these studies but I shared my thoughts on the great work the authors did to connect with descendant and indigenous communities affected by the study results. Read the article here. 
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Science Outreach marathon in Puerto Rico

11/1/2018

 

At the end of October I went to my home, Puerto Rico, to deliver three public outreach talks discussing my dissertation research with the public. In these presentations I talked about how my ancient DNA work can inform us about the origins of our ancient indigenous communities and expand our understanding of their genetic and cultural links to present-day Puerto Ricans. 

We visited the Centro Ceremonial of Tibes Museum in Ponce, PR, University of Puerto Rico-Ponce and University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. Of all the talks I have ever given I have to say these were the most rewarding. I had a blast sharing my findings with members of indigenous communities, museum staff, students, teachers and many other people who came to talk with me about who we are and what the genetic data means to them as the living descendants of the ancient peoples whom I study.

Special thanks to my family and friends for making this possible by driving me all around the island for three days straight!

Talking about genomics and human history at Día abierto LANGEBIO-CINVESTAV

10/19/2018

 
Today, we held the first of two open days at the LANGEBIO institute. Dr. Karla Sandoval and I had great fun talking with over 200 high school students on how we use genomics to understand human history.

Dicussing human migration and genetics on Radio UNAM "La ciencia que somos"

10/13/2018

 
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On October 12th, due to weeklong discussions on the "Dia de la Raza" here in Mexico I was interviewed, along with Dr. Victor Acuña Alonzo (ENAH) and Dr. Sandra Romero Hidalgo (INMEGEN), on Radio UNAM 96.1 FM scicomm radio show and podcast "La ciencia que somos".  We talked about what genetics has told us about the first peopling of the Americas,  the role of migration and admixture in the post-contact Americas and why race is not a useful category for describing human variation. To listen click here (en español).

New paper on enrichment methods for ancient Y-chromosomes

8/15/2018

 
Our paper developing strategies for Y-chromosome enrichment in ancient samples is out now in BMC Genomics!  This work was led by Maria C. Avila-Arcos (LIIGH) and includes collaborative work from colleagues at Stanford University and University of Bern. Special congratulations to first author, doctoral student extraordinaire Diana I. Cruz-Davalos (University of Bern). To see the previous version of this paper posted on Bioarxiv click here.
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Teaching bioinformatics for anthropologists with AAAG

8/6/2018

 
I just returned from teaching a session about VCF format and variant filtering at the AGAR2018 workshop on using bioinformatics for anthropological genetics held at SUNY University at Buffalo by the American Association of Anthropological Genetics (AAAG). To download the original course materials written by myself and other colleagues go to the workshop GitHub page: https://github.com/Sagui-omics/AAAGs_2018. Awesome doctoral student Tina Lasisi (Penn State) wrote a blog post about the workshop, check it out here. To learn more about AAAG (and join!) their web page is here. 
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Public round table on race, racism and anthropology at Museo Nacional de Antropología de Mexico

5/19/2018

 
I participated as a panelist and round table discussant with Agustin Fuentes (University of Notre Dame) and Francisco Vergara (UNAM) at the conference "Raza, Racismo, antropología y evolución" held at the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City and sponsored by the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH). See the video of Agustin´s talk and our panel discussion on INAH TV here or press on the video link to the right (round table starts around minute 54). To read a great review written by Bernardo Yañez of the full week of courses taught by Agustin at ENAH during his visit and our panel discussion click here. Press coverage of our exposition is also available here (en español). Special thanks to the graduate students of the Physical Anthropology Program at ENAH for the invitation!
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New paper examining performance of ancient DNA extraction methods in tropical remains

3/14/2018

 
My paper comparing performance of two ancient DNA extraction protocols in skeletal remains from topical environments is now published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Our study included samples from sites across the Americas and Africa and was conducted in collaboration with archeologists and biological anthropologists from Arizona State University, University of Miami, University of California Riverside and Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. Thanks to NSF and other funding sources for supporting our work. See the previous version of this paper posted on Bioarxiv here.
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Contributed art to exhibit on Maps of the Caribbean

2/28/2018

 
The art exhibit  Antillean Visions: Maps and the Making of the Caribbean just opened at the University of Miami Lowe Art Museum. It was organized by my awesome collaborator William J. Pestle and contains over 200 historic and contemporary maps of the Caribbean. I contributed two "DNA maps" extracted from my research showcasing how genetics can also serve to understand the island landscape and the peoples that live in it (see right). Check out more on the exhibit here. It will run from February 2 – May 27, 2018.
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Quoted by Lizzie Wade in Science

2/21/2018

 
I was quoted in Lizzie Wade's article discussing research by Schroeder et al. (2018) on ancient DNA from archaeological human remains in the Bahamas and its significance for us Caribbean islanders. See news piece here and original article  by Hanne Schroeder and colleagues here.
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New paper on Eurasian mtDNA ancestry in Puerto Rico

7/20/2017

 
Our paper examining the Eurasian ancestry component of present-day Puerto Rico mitochondrial genomes is now published in Human Biology. We found that many Puerto Ricans have mtDNA lineages that share common ancestors with people from the Canary Islands and other parts of the circum-Mediterranean. This work was conducted under the leadership of Juan C. Martinez-Cruzado of University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. Press coverage of our paper by the Spanish newspaper El Diario is available here (en español).
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RFF covers my ancient DNA research

5/31/2017

 
The Rust Family Foundation which funded part of my ancient DNA research in Puerto Rico has written up a cool summary of my work. See it here! To learn more abut the RFF Archaeology Grants Program click here.
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Using DNA to identify the origins of unprovenienced skeletal remains for repatriation

4/1/2017

 
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Anne Stone and I were part of a multidisciplinary team, contributing DNA evidence to a large attempt to identify   the origins of unprovenienced skeletal remains for repatriation. Our paper on this topic has just been published in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences. Find it here. This work was led by researchers at Boise State University.

ASU CEM covers my work with Afro-Caribbean populations

2/22/2017

 
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Thanks to the ASU Center for Evolution and Medicine (CEM) for funding my research through their Venture Funds Grant program. Check out their press release of my work studying the genetics of Afro-Caribbean populations here! Consider following the CEM on twitter at @evmedasu!


New paper on mtDNA enrichment from dental calculus

7/21/2016

 
Our paper on successful enrichment of whole mitochondrial genomes from ancient dental calculus collected from human remains at the Norris Farms site is  available on Open Access from the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Click here to view! Press coverage of our article by National Geographic can be found here. Coverage by Nature Research Highlights here and by EurekaAlert here. This work was conducted in collaboration with researchers at University of Oklahoma and Penn State.
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