I study past human populations using genomic data extracted from archaeological remains. Leveraging recent advances in laboratory methods and bioinformatic approaches we can now recover and analyse ancient DNA even from challenging environments, including tropical and subtropical regions. My PhD studies and early postdoc research focused on the prehistoric Near East, from as early as the Mesolithic and up until the late Iron Age. Today, My main research focus is on the population history of Oceania. Working in an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists, we reconstruct patterns of human mobility, population structure, and aspects of past health and disease of past Oceanic populations.

I lead the DFG funded project 'The study of East Polynesian history through an archaeogenomic time transect' (2025-2027) and the community outreach focused ‘GENONESIA’ project, funded by the exploration funds, university of Tübingen (2025-2027). 

2025 - Present Principle Investigator of the DFG funded project 'The study of East Polynesian history through an archaeogenomic time transect' (2025-2027) and the community outreach focused ‘GENONESIA’ project, funded by the exploration funds, university of Tübingen (2025-2027), the Archaeo- and Palaeo-genetics group, Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen

2020 - 2024 Postdoctoral researcher at the Archaeo- and Palaeo-genetics group,Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP), Eberhard Karls University Tübingen

2019 - 2020 Postdoctoral research associate at the Max Planck - Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, department of Archaeogenetics, the Max Planck institute for the Science of human History, Jena, Germany

2019 Ph.D. Dr. rer. Nat at the genetic department, the Biological sciences faculty, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany and the international Max Planck research school for the science of human history at the Max Planck institute for the Science of human History, Jena, Germany. 

• Thesis titled: “Tracing past human mobility and disease in western Eurasia by the genetic analysis of ancient human remains” 

2013 M.Sc. in Medical Sciences, The Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.

• Thesis titled:  “Detection and characterization of human disease-related genes from ancient human mummified tissue”

2009 B.Sc. Pharm in Pharmacy, The school of pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• Pearson, J., Evans, J., Lamb, A., Baird, D., Hodder, I., Marciniak, A., Larsen, C.S., Knusel, C.J., Haddow S.D., Pilloud, M.A., Bogaard, A., Fairbairn, A., Plug, J.H., Mazzucato, C., Mustafaoglu, G., Feldman, M., Somel, S., Dominguez, E.F. “Mobility and kinship in the world’s first village societies”. PNAS (2023).https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209480119
• Miszkiewicz, J.J., Buckley, H.R., Feldman, M. et al. “Female bone physiology resilience in a past Polynesian Outlier community”. Sci Rep 12, 18857 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23171-3
• Feldman, M., Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A., Lamnidis T.C. & Posth C. “Where Asia meets Europe – recent insights from ancient human genomics”, Annals of Human Biology, 48:3, 191-202, DOI: 10.1080/03014460.2021.1949039 (2021).
• Feldman M., Master D.M., Bianco R.A., et al. “Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines.” Science Advances (2019). doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0061
• Feldman M., Fernández-Domínguez E., Reynolds L., et al. “Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia.” Nature Communications. 10, 1218 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09209-7
• Mittnik A., Wang C.C., Pfrengle S., Daubaras M., Zariņa G., Hallgren F., Allmäe R., Khartanovich V., Moiseyev V., Tõrv M., Furtwängler A., Valtueña A.A., Feldman M., Economou C., et al. “The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region.” Nature communications, 9(1), p.442 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02825-9
• Valtueña A.A., Mittnik A., Key F.M., et al. “The stone age plague and its persistence in Eurasia." Current biology 27, no. 23 (2017): 3683-3691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.025
• Feldman M, Harbeck M, Keller M, et al. “A high-coverage Yersinia pestis genome from a sixth-century Justinianic plague victim.” Molecular biology and evolution 30;33, no. 11 (2016): 2911-23. doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msw170
• Spyrou M.A., Tukhbatova R.I., Feldman M., et al.  “Historical Y. pestis genomes reveal the European Black Death as the source of ancient and modern plague pandemics.” Cell host & microbe 8, no. 19(6) (2016):874-81. doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2016.05.012
• Feldman, M., Hershkovitz I., Sklan E.H., et al. "Detection of a tumor suppressor gene variant predisposing to colorectal cancer in an 18th century Hungarian mummy." PloS one 11, no. 2 (2016): e0147217. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147217
• Hershkovitz I., Donoghue H.D., Minnikin D.E., May H., Lee O.Y.C., Feldman M., et al. "Tuberculosis origin: the Neolithic scenario." Tuberculosis 95 (2015): S122-S126. doi.org/10.1016/j.tube.2015.02.021