Arbel Harpak, Ph.D.

Research

Sex is a key factor in evolution, health, and disease. However, we often know little about how sex differences come to be—even when they are stark, such as in the incidence of autism spectrum disorder or autoimmune disease. The Harpak lab will develop new models for the drivers of sex differences and scour large databases to test predictions of these models. In particular, we will relate the genetic and environmental mechanisms that drive apparent “sexual dimorphisms” to the factors that drive within-sex variation. Using humans, as well as wild animal populations, we will also explore how sex differences translate to differences in natural selection acting on males and females. This work could improve our ability to predict sex-specific genetic risk of disease and advance our understanding of the role of sex in evolution.