Dr. Christina Warinner earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 2010 and received postdoctoral training in genomics and proteomics at the University of Zurich (2010-2012) and the University of Oklahoma (2012-2014). In 2014, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Anthropology and awarded a Presidential Research Professorship at the University of Oklahoma (OU). In 2016, she was made W2 Group Leader of Microbiome Sciences at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), and in 2018 she was promoted to University Professor in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. Since 2019, she has been a Professor in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University. In addition to this position, she is also the Sally Starling Seaver Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, a Group Leader of Microbiome Sciences at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and an Associated Group Leader of Archaeogenetics at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology.
Warinner specializes in biomolecular archaeology, with an emphasis on reconstructing the prehistory of human foods and the evolution of the microbiome. She is known for her pioneering work in ancient DNA and proteins research, which has contributed to the study of prehistoric human health, ancestral human oral and gut microbiota, the origins of dairying, and past human migrations. She has published two books (Method and Theory in Paleoethnobotany and Ancient Maya Color) and more than 70 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, Nature Genetics, Nature Ecology and Evolution, Current Biology, Nature Communications, Current Anthropology, Latin American Antiquity, and the Journal of Archaeological Science.
She is the President of the International Society for Biomolecular Archaeology, and she serves on the Leadership Team of the Max Planck – Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Program Board of the American School for Prehistoric Research. She is the recipient of the American Anthropological Association’s Exemplary Cross-Fields Award, the Federation of European Microbiological Societies Article Award, and the Shanghai Archaeological Forum Research Award. Her research has earned Honorable Mention for the Omenn Prize, an annual prize for the best article published on evolution, medicine and public health, and her ancient microbiome findings were named among the top 100 scientific discoveries of 2014 by Discover Magazine. She was named one of the Top 10 Scientists Ready to Transform Their Field in 2017 by Science News, and her research on medieval women artists was named one of the top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2019 by Archaeology Magazine. Her research has been featured in more than a hundred news articles and programs, including stories in the New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Scientific American, Archaeology Magazine, the New Scientist, the Guardian, the Observer, WIRED UK, and CNN, among others.
She has presented before the US National Academy of Sciences (2023), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2019), the British Academy (2019), the Royal Society of London (2013), and at the California Academy of Sciences and the American Museum of Natural History on behalf of the Leakey Foundation (2013, 2016). In 2015 she was an invited participant at the White House Microbiome Innovation Forum sponsored by the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She has been featured in documentaries produced by PBS NOVA, Netflix, and the genome sequencing company Illumina, and her research on ancient Nepal appears in the award-winning children’s book, Secrets of the Sky Caves. She created the Adventures in Archaeological Science coloring book, now available in more than 60 languages and available for free to children around the world. She is a US National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow (2014) and a TED Fellow (2012), and her TED Talks on ancient dental calculus and the evolution of the human diet have been viewed more than 2 million times.