AGNAR HELGASON

Head of Anthropology

Agnar completed his undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Anthropology at the University of Iceland in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He then obtained a second Master’s degree in Biological Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1996 and a D.Phil. (PhD) degree in the same subject from the University of Oxford in 2001.  Agnar joined deCODE in 2000.

His research focusses on understanding how the evolutionary forces of mutation, migration, drift and natural selection have shaped the gene pool of Icelanders and other populations – in the context of the quest for knowledge about the basis and magnitude of phenotypic differences between humans.