Genetics and Identity Symposium

Taking advantage of NYU Abu Dhabi’s unique capacity for multidisciplinary research, this is a collaborative initiative led by a team of biologists and social scientists from the Divisions of Science and Social Science in the emerging new field of identity and genetics.

The mapping of the human genome in the twenty-first century has raised fundamental questions about identity: who we are as individuals, and how we are sorted into groups. Yet new research in genetics is often divorced from social science research on individual and group identity. It also raises ethical questions that require the combined scrutiny of social scientists and biologists.

Our goal is to combine social science and genetics to produce innovative research, education and outreach on the question of how genetics can (and cannot) inform our understandings of the fundamentals of individual and group identity, how these understandings of identity affect our health and well-being, and how they inform, and should inform, public policy and governance.

Email stephane.boissinot@nyu.edu for more details.