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Zeresenay (Zeray) Alemseged
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Age: 43
Position: Paleoanthropologist and chair and senior curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences
Institution: California Academy of Sciences
Education: Ph.D. in paleoanthropology from Pierre
and Marie Curie University; M.Sc. in evolution from the University of
Montpellier II; B.Sc. in geology from Addis Ababa University
Nationality: Ethiopian
Zeresenay Alemseged is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who studies
the origins of humanity in the Ethiopian desert, focusing on the
emergence of childhood and tool use. His
most exciting find was the 3.3-million-year-old bones of Selam, a 3-year-old girl from the species
Australopithecus afarensis.
By studying these bones, Alemseged is helping us determine the
timeline of human evolution — how we came to be and spread across the
Earth, 7 billion strong.
Fun fact: He speaks five languages.
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Isaac Kinde
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Age: 29
Position: Graduate/medical student
Institution: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Education: Current M.D./Ph.D. student at Johns
Hopkins School of Medicine; B.S. in biological sciences from the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Nationality: American, first-generation of Ethiopian and Eritrean descent
As a graduate student at Johns Hopkins, Kinde is working on improving
the accuracy of genetic sequencing so that it can be used to diagnose
cancer at an early stage in a simple, noninvasive manner. Sequencing
improvements can also be applied to pre-natal genetic testing and
personalized therapeutics — for example scanning your genes to improve
treatment outcomes based on your individual mutations.
In 2007 he worked with Bert Vogelstein, who just won the
$3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
Fun fact: He's an avid biker,
coffee drinker and occasional video game player.
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