My name is Kelsey Witt, and I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the Program for Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Conservation. I got my undergraduate degree in genetics at Texas A&M University in 2012, and will graduate in May 2017.

I work in an Ancient DNA Laboratory at the Institute for Genomic Biology under Dr. Ripan Malhi. I am mainly interested in the process of domestication, human-domesticate coevolution, and the use of domestic animals as a proxy for humans when studying human population history. I am also interested in the use of ancient DNA to study past populations and their demographic histories.

My research focuses on the domestic dog in the Americas. Dogs arrived with humans to the Americas, and were used in many different capacities, as guards, load-bearers and even as a food source. Dog burials are numerous across the Americas, especially in Illinois. I am currently assessing the population diversity in dogs in the Americas, with the hope of using dogs as a genetic proxy for humans to understand Native American migration history. I also have interests in more geographically localized questions concerning the history of human populations in the Illinois River Valley, through collaboration with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey.