I am an evolutionary geneticist and my research focus is in archaeo- and paleogenetics. My main interest is to study past human populations via ancient DNA to address archaeological and historical questions such as: ancient population migrations and their interactions; understanding the processes of cultural and biological adaptations to changing environments; reconstructing the social structure of ancient communities, studying how it changed and transformed through time and space. During my PhD I have worked projects aimed at reconstructing the genomic diversity, recent history and biological adaptation of high altitude. During my postdoctoral research at the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, I have work on a number of ancient DNA projects studying genomes from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages with a particular focus on transdisciplinary archaeogenetic studies on the Migration Period and Early Middle Ages in West Eurasia.

2025-present 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

2020-2024 Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA), Leipzig, Germany.

2018-2020 Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), Jena, Germany.
 

2017-2018 Research Assistant, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy
Education and key qualifications
 

2014-2018 Ph.D in Molecular Anthropology & Population Genetics, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy
 

2012-2014 Master Degree in Biodiversity and Evolution, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy
 

2007-2011 Bachelor Degree in Biological Sciences, Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

#corresponding author, *equal contribution:

• Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A.*#, Z. Rácz*, L. Samu, T. Szeniczey, N. Faragó, C. Knipper, R. Friedrich, et al. 2024. Network of large pedigrees reveals social practices of Avar communities. Nature, 629, pp. 376-383.
   
• Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A.*#, A. Szécsényi-Nagy*, I. Koncz, G. Csiky, Z. Rácz, A.B. Rohrlach, G. Brandt, et al. 2022. Ancient Genomes Reveal Origin and Rapid Trans-Eurasian Migration of 7th Century Avar Elites. Cell 185 (8): 1402-1413.e21.
   
• Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A, E. Khussainova, N. Kahbatkyzy, L. Musralina, M.A. Spyrou, R.A. Bianco, R. Radzeviciute, et al. 2021. “Ancient Genomic Time Transect from the Central Asian Steppe Unravels the History of the Scythians.” Science Advances 7 (13).
   
• Spyrou, M.A., L. Musralina, Gnecchi Ruscone G.A., A. Kocher, P.-G. Borbone, V.I. Khartanovich, A. Buzhilova, et al. 2022. “The Source of the Black Death in Fourteenth-Century Central Eurasia.” Nature 606 (7915): 718–24.
   
• Posth, C., V. Zaro, Spyrou M.A., Vai S., Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A., Modi A., Peltzer A., et al. 2021. “The Origin and Legacy of the Etruscans through a 2000-Year Archeogenomic Time Transect.” Science Advances 7 (39).
   
• Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A.*, S. Sarno*, S. De Fanti, L. Gianvincenzo, C. Giuliani, A. Boattini, E. Bortolini, et al. 2019. “Dissecting the Pre-Columbian Genomic Ancestry of Native Americans along the Andes-Amazonia Divide.” Molecular Biology and Evolution 36 (6): 1254–69.
   
• Gnecchi-Ruscone G.A. Abondio P., De Fanti S., Sarno S., Sherpa M.G., Sherpa P.T., Marinelli G., et al. 2018. “Evidence of Polygenic Adaptation to High Altitude from Tibetan and Sherpa Genomes.” Genome Biology and Evolution 10 (11): 2919–30.