Rate My Professor Nelson Ting

Nelson Ting is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, affiliated with the Institute of Ecology and Evolution. He earned a B.A. in Biology and Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999, an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the City University of New York Graduate Center through the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology in 2008. Ting directs the Ting Lab, which forms one half of the University of Oregon Molecular Anthropology Group. The lab's research lies at the intersections of genetics/genomics, evolutionary ecology, and conservation in natural animal populations, focusing on mammals inhabiting the African tropics. He investigates how evolutionary and ecological processes shape diversity, adaptation, and health in wildlife populations using genetic and genomic tools. His areas of specialization include ecological genetics/genomics, molecular ecology, conservation, and evolutionary ecology. Specific interests encompass landscape genetics, immunogenomics, population genomics, and host-microbe interactions. Ting combines fieldwork, lab-based methods, and computational approaches to understand factors affecting wild populations and to inform conservation strategies for threatened species. His scholarly interests originated in evolution and natural history, evolving into molecular systematics, conservation biology, phylogeographic and population genetic reconstructions of population history, and more recent genomic applications.

Ting's projects have received funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Geographic Society, and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. He serves as scientific advisor to the Red Colobus Working Group and is a member of the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group and the IUCN Conservation Genetics Specialist Group, reflecting his dedication to translating scientific knowledge into conservation policy and action.