About

Dr. Spencer Wells will speak on the topic “The Human Journey: A Genetic Odyssey” at the Spring meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Association of Greater Austin.  The meeting is free and open to the public, and will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 3, in the Julius Glickman Center on the UT campus (College of Liberal Arts Building at UT, off 23rd St. and San Jacinto Circle).  

Dr. Wells is a geneticist, anthropologist, author, documentary film maker, Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, and a new owner of Antone’s night club in Austin.  He also heads the Genographic Project, a multi-year genetic anthropology study that aims to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.  In 2002, he wrote a book tracing human migrations over the last 50,000 years, called The Journey of Man, and then went on to produce a PBS documentary of the same name.

Wells grew up in Lubbock, Texas, enrolled at UT Austin at age 16, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BS in Biology in 1988.  He has a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University as well as a research fellow at the University of Oxford.  He is an engaging speaker who was featured in a 2008 TED Talk, gave the 2011 commencement address for the UT College of Natural Sciences, and discussed genetic history with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report.

Event Details

• Date: May 3, 2015
• Time: 3:00 PM
• Venue: Julius Glickman Center on the UT campus (College of Liberal Arts Building)
• Website: http://pbkaaga.wildapricot.org

Ticket Information

• Cost: Free

Venue Details