Environmental Factors in the Evolution of Skin Color Variation in Humans

Description

In this workshop we learned about the evolutionary factors behind why our ancient human ancestors first evolved dark skin in Africa, and then spread out over the globe to evolve a wide variety of skin colors. What environmental conditions led to these changes? Are these forces still in play in the modern world? How does this apply to humanity facing modern changes in our environment, like climate change?

Speaker Bio:

Khela Baskett studied chemistry and computer science at UC Berkeley. She has worked in biotech at the Joint Genome Institute, and held software engineering and project management roles for academic, government, and industry projects. She is interested in anti-racism education, especially what genetics and evolutionary biology can teach us about the unity of the human family.