Dr. Jada Benn Torres will present her talk A Community Engaged Approach to the Genetic Ancestry and Cultural Identity of Afrodescendientes in Puerto Rico on Friday, April 16 at 10 am as part of the Spring 2021 Anthropology Colloquia Speaker Series.  You can access the talk here.  There is no passcode.

Jada Benn Torres, is an Associate Professor and Director of the Genetic Anthropology and Biocultural Studies Laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, USA. Her primary research area is the Anglophone and Hispanic Caribbean where she explores ancient and modern population genetics of African and Indigenous Caribbean peoples. Principles of community-based participatory research heavily influence her research agenda. Accordingly, Dr. Benn Torres regularly returns results to participants and contributes study findings to permanent exhibits within local communities. Dr. Benn Torres has also published on the impacts of genetic technologies on contemporary populations with specific regard to issues of race and identity. As part of this research agenda, she has published single-authored work and has also collaborated independently with a genetic epidemiologist, cultural anthropologist, and a historian to examine various aspects of the medical and social meanings of genetic data as it pertains to biomedicine, race, and Caribbean history.

Hosted by the Department of Anthropology, the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies, and the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII) the Department Colloquia Speaker Series will be held virtually via Zoom on Fridays at 10 am, and will be made available on our You Tube account following the event.  Upcoming speakers include (more details forthcoming): 

April 23                Nicholas Emlen (University of Tübingen)

April 30                 Suzanne Gaskins (Northeastern Illinois)

May 7                    Zwedi Tsegai (Max Planck Institute)