Susan E. Ptak

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Evolutionary Genetics
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig

ptak at eva.mpg.de

 

 

 

 

 

Education

2004 - 2006

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Postdoctoral fellow under Svante Pääbo

2002 - 2003

Interdiscplinary Center for Bioinformatics, Leipzig, Germany
Postdoctoral fellow under Molly Przeworski

1996 - 2001

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Ph.D. in Biological Sciences under Marcus W. Feldman

1992 - 1996

Villanova University,Villanova, PA, USA
B.S. in Honors Biology with a minor in mathematics

Honors and Grants

1999 

Centennial Teaching Assistant Award
Stanford University, Stanford CA, USA 

1996 - 2001 

Howard Hughes Medical Research predoctoral fellowship
Stanford University, Stanford CA, USA

1996

Mendal Medallion, Academic Excellence in Sciences
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

1996

Gallen Award, Service and Achievment in Biology
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

1995 - 1996 

Goldwater Scholar scholarship
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

1992 - 1996  

Villanova Scholar scholarship
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

Teaching and Research Experience  

Summer 1999 

Summer School in Complex Systems
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA 

Fall 1998, Spring 1997,
Winter 1997 

Teaching assistant in introductory biology, behavioral ecology, & biostatistics
Stanford University, Stanford CA, USA

Spring 1994 - Summer 1996 (including summers)

Independent research in population genetics under R. William Marks
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

Fall 1994 - Spring 1996  

Teaching assistant for genetics under R. William Marks
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

Summers 1994 - 1997 

Resident assistant and instructor for a program in math and biology for high school students in NSF - HHMI Young Scholars Program
Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA

Summer 1993 

Research assistant to Nicholas R.S. Hall and associates  
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

Publications   

Ptak, S.E., Enard, W., Wiebe, V., Hellmann, I., Krause, J., Lachmann, M., Pääbo, S. 2009. Linkage disequilibrium extends across putative selected sites in FOXP2. Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Clark, V.J., Ptak, S.E., Tiemann, I., Qian, Y., Coop, G., Stone, A.C., Przeworski, M., Arnheim, N., Di Rienzo, A. 2007. Combining sperm typing and linkage disequilibrium analyses reveals differences in selective pressures or recombination rates across human populations. Genetics 175: 795–804.

Green, R.E., J. Krause, S.E. Ptak, A.W. Briggs, M.T. Ronan, J.F. Simons, L. Du, M. Egholm, J.M. Rothberg, M. Paunovic, S. Pääbo. 2006. Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA. Nature 444: 330-336.

Hellmann, I., K. Prūfer, H. Ji, M.C. Zody, S. Pääbo, S.E. Ptak. 2005. Why do human diversity levels vary at a megabase scale? Genome Research 15: 1222-1231.

Ptak, S.E., D.A. Hinds, K. Koehler, B. Nickel, N. Patil, D.G. Ballinger, M. Przeworski*, K.A. Frazer*, and S. Pääbo*. 2005. Fine-scale recombination patterns differ between chimpanzees and humans.  Nature Genetics 37: 429-434.

Ptak, S.E.*, A.D. Roeder*, M. Stephens, Y. Gilad, S. Pääbo and M. Przeworski. 2004. Absence of the TAP2 human recombination hotspot in chimpanzees.  PLoS 2: 849-855.

Ptak, S.E., K. Voelpel, and M. Przeworski. 2004. Insights into recombination from patterns of linkage disequilibrium in humans.  Genetics 167: 387-397.

Hellmann, I. I. Ebersberger, S.E. Ptak, S. Pääbo, and M. Przeworski. 2003.  Mutation and recombination are associated processes in humans. American Journal of Human Genetics 72: 1527-1535        

Ptak, S.E. and M. Przeworski. 2002. Evidence for population growth in humans is confounded by fine-scale population structure. Trends in Genetics 18: 559-563.

Ptak, S.E. and D. Petrov. 2002. How intron splicing affects the insertion and deletion profile in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 162: 1233-1244.       

Ptak, S.E. and M. Lachmann. 2002. On the evolution of polygamy: a theoretical examination of the polygamy threshold model. Behavioral Ecology 14:201-211. Santa Fe Institute Working Paper 01-01-001.

Marks, R.W. and S.E. Ptak.  2001.  The maintenance of single-locus polymorphism.  V.  Sex-dependent viabilities.  Selection 1: 217-228.  

 

* These authors contributed equally.