Ian Barnes (born in

Chadwell Heath Chadwell Heath is an area in East London, England. It is split between the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the London Borough of Redbridge, around west of Romford and east of Ilford, and north-east of Charing Cross. History Topon ...

in 1972) is an evolutionary geneticist notable for his work on

ancient DNA Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient sources (typically Biological specimen, specimens, but also environmental DNA). Due to degradation processes (including Crosslinking of DNA, cross-linking, deamination and DNA fragmentation, fragme ...

, human and animal migration, and

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

. Barnes is a Research Leader in the Department of Earth Sciences at the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

in London. He pioneered the use of ancient DNA to study the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

mammal fauna, which has provided insights into how animals responded to global climate change. More recently, his research has explored human population change in prehistoric Britain, including work on the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...

human skeleton known as

Cheddar Man Cheddar Man is a human male skeleton found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. The skeletal remains date to around the mid-to-late 9th millennium BC, corresponding to the Mesolithic period, and it appears that he died a viole ...

His work on phylogenetics includes a study of South American mammal species first identified by Darwin, led in collaboration with the University of York, and the American Museum of Natural History, which “resolved one of the last unresolved major problems in mammalian evolution: the origins of the South American native ungulates". He has also resolved the phylogenetic placement of the

Nesophontidae ''Nesophontes'', sometimes called West Indies shrews, is the sole genus of the extinct, monotypic mammal family Nesophontidae in the order Eulipotyphla. These animals were small insectivores, about 5 to 15 cm long, with a long slender snout ...

, and evolutionary origins of various Caribbean mammal lineages including primates and rodents.

Education and career

Barnes obtained a BSc in Archaeological Sciences from the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

, and a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Biology from the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

supervised by

Keith Dobney Keith M. Dobney is a British archaeologist and academic, specialising in bioarchaeology and palaeopathology of human and animal remains. Since 2020, he has been Head of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiries at the University of Syd ...

. Following his doctoral research, Barnes worked with

Mark Thomas Mark Clifford Thomas (born 11 April 1963) is an English comedian, best known for the political stunts that he performs on his show, ''The Mark Thomas Comedy Product'' on Channel 4. Thomas first became known as a guest comic on the BBC Radio 1 ...

at UCL on the recovery of DNA from medical museum specimens, and with

Alan J. Cooper Alan John Cooper (born 1966) is a New Zealand evolutionary biologist and an ancient DNA researcher. He was involved in several important early ancient DNA studies, such as the first sequencing of moa genomes. He was the inaugural director of bot ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. He was then awarded a

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

Bioarchaeology Fellowship and returned to UCL, and subsequently received a NERC fellowship to work on the Late Pleistocene megafauna at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

. He was made Professor of Molecular Palaeobiology there in 2013, and moved that year to the Natural History Museum. He is the recipient of numerous research awards from major funding bodies including the Wellcome Trust and UKRI.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnes, Ian 1972 births Living people British biologists British geneticists Alumni of the University of York Alumni of the University of Bradford Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellows