New Genetics and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Database Working Group

    Co-Directors: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelynn M. Hammonds

The New Genetics and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Working Group was convened for the first time in January 2006 and included the nation’s top scientists, social scientists, and historians who discussed the latest research in genetics and how to effectively use historical and social contexts to understand the origins of the Africans who survived the Middle Passage in the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the United States. This past year’s meeting included presentations by Marc Bauchet (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology), David Eltis (Emory University), Peter Forster (University of Cambridge), Duana Fullwiley (Harvard University), Linda Heywood (Boston University), Kenneth K. Kidd (Yale University), and John K. Thornton (Boston University).