About Me
I am an evolutionary and functional geneticist currently working on human adaptation during the black plague with Luis Barreiro at the University of Chicago, as a Ruth Kirschstein NRSA Fellow. I received my PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology from Duke University in December 2019 where I worked with Jenny Tung to investigate hybridization and gene regulation in Papio baboons.

My current research examines how Europeans adapted to Yersinia pestis during the Black Death, combining ancient genomics with functional assays in modern individuals. I am expanding this line of work beyond human evolution to understand how the immune response to infectious diseases have evolved among primate species. More generally, I am interested in leveraging genetic and gene regulatory variation to understand the evolution of complex traits. I am particularly interested in how gene regulatory responses have evolved to deal with changing environmental conditions throughout an individual's life.  

​​Contact Me
Email: taur.vil@gmail.com
Twitter: @TaurVil