Benjamin Peter

Assistant Professor

bpeter@ucla.edu


lab website

Research Areas

Evolutionary Anthropology, Evolutionary Biology, Theory

Research Interests

We are a computational biology lab, with a wide range of interests in statistical, computational and theoretical population genetics. Our overarching shared interest is to model and use genetic variation data to learn about evolutionary processes and natural history.

Currently, a key focus of the lab is using ancient DNA to study human genetic history and diversity, and particularly our relationship with archaic human groups such as Neandertals and Denisovans. For this purpose, we develop methods that allow us to leverage highly-degraded genetic data, and apply them to existing and novel data sets of archaic and modern humans.

Selected Publications

Bossoms Mesa et al (2026): Genetic diversity of late Neanderthals in northwestern Europe doi Newsroom Article
Sümer et al (2026): A Method to Analyze Low-Quality Archaic Human Genomes and its Application to the Teshik-Tash 1 Neandertal doi
Iasi et al (2024): Neanderthal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans. doi
Peter (2022): A geometric relationship of F2, F3 and F4-statistics with principal component analysis doi
Skov et al (2022) Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals doi

Peter (2016): Admixture, Population Structure, and F-Statistics. doi

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The UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As part of a California land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.