Guillaume Achaz is an evolutionary biologist working at the interface with computer science and mathematics.
After a master degree in biochemistry and genetics, he did a PhD in genomics and bioinformatics at Sorbonne Université (defense in 2002). He then did a postdoc in population genetics in Harvard University and fell in love with evolutionary modeling. After being an assistant Professor at Sorbonne Université (2005-2019) and is now professor at Paris-Cité University (2019-).
He develops models in molecular evolution, mainly for population genetics and comparative genomics, which he evaluates with sequencing data using statistical and bioinformatics tools. His work covers all areas of life. The current subjects of most excitements are:
- Lewontin's Paradox (why do current reference models predict so poorly the observed genetics diversity)
- Conservation Genomics (can we predict the very recent trend of population size variation using genome alignments)
- Correlated Evolution (non-independent evolution between two traits, genetically or not)
- Somatic Evolution (modeling development as an evolutionary process).
Involved in the dissemination of knowledge, he teaches at Université Paris-Cité, but also at the École Normale Supérieure and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Among others, he directs the Groupement de Recherche (GDR CNRS) Approche Interdisciplinaire de l'Evolution Moléculaire (Interdisciplinary Approach to Molecular Evolution), which promotes this field of research at national level and brings together all interested researchers from a variety of disciplines: biology, physics, computer science, mathematics and the history and philosophy of science.
