Alyssa Bader

Alyssa Bader received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research program integrates genomic, archaeological, and community-held knowledge to investigate relationships between diet and health in past and contemporary Indigenous communities. This community-collaborative research includes reconstructing the diet and microbiome of past peoples using ancient DNA and stable isotope methods, and assessing how the oral microbiome of communities today has been shaped by traditional foods. Bader is Alaska Native (Tsimshian) and focuses her research on the Pacific Northwest coast, primarily in southeast Alaska and British Columbia, where she has several partnerships with Indigenous nations and organizations.

A central component of Bader’s research program is developing resources and guidance for ethical and just genomic research in collaboration with Indigenous nations. She is an alum and current instructor of the Summer internship for Indigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) USA program. Previously, she held positions as an assistant professor of anthropology at McGill University, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder, and an NSF postdoctoral research fellow at the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska.