Keolu Fox | It’s All Science
Bio | Keolu Fox Ph.D., Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) is an assistant professor at University of California, San Diego, affiliated with the Department of Anthropology, the Global Health Program, the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, the Climate Action Lab, and the Indigenous Futures Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Genome Sciences from the University of Washington, Seattle (2016). Dr. Fox’s multi-disciplinary research interests include genome sequencing, genome engineering, computational biology, evolutionary genetics, paleogenetics, and Indigenizing biomedical research. His primary research focuses on questions of functionalizing genomics, testing theories of natural selection by editing genes and determining the functions of mutations. Dr. Fox has published numerous articles on human genetics, biomedicine, ancient genomics, and Indigenous data sovereignty, most recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Dr. Fox is a recipient of grants from numerous organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the American Association for Physical Anthropology, Emerson Collective, the Social Science Research Council and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SOLVE Initiative.
Links | website | Twitter | TED talk
Intro | Keolu Fox does cutting-edge science and is a relentless advocate for indigenous data sovereignty and cultural conservation. He blends relevant expertise from biomedical science, technology, and indigenous rights into his unique perspective and work. Fitting that he ended the interview by loosely quoting Miles Davis:
“Don’t try to put me in a category. I don’t believe in categories. We just make music.”
Notes and links from the conversation:
Butterfly iQ Portable UltraSound Machine
Rights, interests and expectations: Indigenous perspectives on unrestricted access to genomic data
The urgency of utilizing COVID-19 biospecimens for research in the heart of the global pandemic
Permanent human occupation of the central Tibetan Plateau in the early Holocene
A Neanderthal Sodium Channel Increases Pain Sensitivity in Present-Day Humans
The Illusion of Inclusion — The “All of Us” Research Program and Indigenous Peoples’ DNA
Highlights:
Here he gives an overview and vision for the Indigenous Futures Lab/Institute:#IndigenousFuturesLab pic.twitter.com/fAnrLRx7St
— science better (@scibetter) November 13, 2020
How he draws lessons from and comparisons to environmental conservation in his cultural conservation work. pic.twitter.com/obWMlzInAr
— science better (@scibetter) November 13, 2020
Why indigenous knowledge belongs on the same hierarchical plane as western science. pic.twitter.com/8dANaahLzU
— science better (@scibetter) November 13, 2020