Olga Rickards

Director of the Department of Biology and the Center for Molecular Anthropology for the study of ancient DNA and Full Professor of Molecular Anthropology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

Olga Rickards was born in Rome on July 20, 1952. She is a full professor of Molecular Anthropology at the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata". She also teaches Anthropology in the Bachelor's degree program in Cultural Heritage Sciences at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the same university, and is part of the Faculty of the "European Master of Anthropology and Human Biology" at the University of Florence. She directs the Departmental Center for Molecular Anthropology for the study of ancient DNA at the Department of Biology of the University "Tor Vergata" and an operational unit of the CNR's Cultural Heritage Project within the biological and ethnoanthropological archive. She worked for several years in the USA with Professor Rebecca Cann of the University of Hawaii and researchers from Cetus in California.

He also has scientific collaboration with the Universities of Cambridge, Bilbao, Madrid, Granada, Zagreb, and Estonia. He conducts his scientific research in the field of Molecular Anthropology and Archaeology, and Human Evolution. On these topics, he has numerous scientific publications in national and international journals. He also engages in scientific outreach, collaborating with newspapers, magazines, radio programs, and television.

He organized specialization courses and workshops on the analysis and applications of ancient DNA, exhibitions on human evolution, with particular emphasis on molecular evolution, and seminars on the same topic. Among his recent publications are the books, written with Gianfranco Biondi, titled "The Paths of Evolution" (CUEN, 2000) and "Men by Chance" (Editori Riuniti, 2001, 2003).