Dr. Kateryna Makova

Biography

Kateryna Makova is a Professor in the Department of Biology at Pennsylvania State University, where she holds the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences and serves as the Director of the Center for Medical Genomics. She received her Ph.D. in Biology from Texas Tech University in 1999 and has trained postdoctorally at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include molecular evolution, population genetics, evolutionary genomics, bioinformatics, and human genetics. Dr. Makova's lab employs a combination of molecular and computational approaches to study male mutation bias and the evolutionary dynamics of genetic variation across different organisms. Current projects focus on the mutation rates of the Y chromosome compared to autosomes and the X chromosome, alongside human population genomics, particularly concerning skin pigmentation and disease gene identification. She collaborates with Dr. Mark Shriver from the Department of Anthropology to explore positive selection and patterns of linkage disequilibrium in human populations.

Research Interests