Claude Bhérer

Claude Bhérer is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Genetics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University. She leads a population genomics research group within a mission-oriented multidisciplinary Canada Excellence Research Chair program, the McGill CERC in Genomic Medicine, covering all facets of genomic medicine. She was previously a Postdoctoral Researcher within the McGill CERC in genomic medicine advised by Dr Vincent Mooser. Before that, she was a FRQS Postdoctoral Research Fellow in New York. She worked at the New York Genome Center with Joseph K. Pickrell (now at Gencove) and Tuuli Lappalainen, and also with Adam Auton (now at 23andMe) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Université de Montréal, M.Sc. in Experimental Medicine (option Population Genetics) from Université Laval, and B.Sc. in Anthropology from Université de Montréal. Her research in the field of human population genetics addresses questions of broad interest in evolutionary biology, genomic medicine and biomedical sciences. Her expertise spans population scale computational analysis, data collection to methods development.

Dr. Bhérer studies human evolution using statistical and computational tools applied to large-scale genomic data paired with other information, notably genealogical and phenotypic data. She is interested in understanding the genetic and evolutionary processes shaping genetic differences among us, and how these contribute to adaptation and disease. Her overreaching aim is to transform massive genomic data into improved knowledge of human biology and health.