Dr Lachie Scarsbrook
About
Dr Lachie Scarsbrook is a geneticist from New Zealand, and part of the Wellcome Trust Palaeogenomics and Bio-Archaeology Research Network. He uses ancient DNA to investigate the role that humans and the environment play in shaping global animal populations.
At the Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka (University of Otago), Dr Scarsbrook's research focused on the characterisation of extinct faunal diversity in Aotearoa (New Zealand) through morphometric and genomic analyses of pre-human subfossil remains. As part of this work, he described a new species of gecko, which was named through collaboration with local Māori iwi (Te Āti Awa).
In Dr Scarsbrook's current DFG-funded postdoctoral research at Oxford, he utilises ancient DNA to reconstruct ancestry and selection throughout the ~20,000-year evolutionary history of domestic dogs. This ranges from identifying shared coevolutionary histories of humans and dogs, to understanding the drivers and consequences of strong artificial selection in dogs over the past two centuries.
Expertise
- Genetics / Genomics
- Domestication
- Ancient DNA
- Archaeology
- Evolution
- Conservation
- Dogs
- Phylogenetics
Selected publications
- The impacts of European arrival on Australian dingoes (2025)
- A 120-y time series of genomes reveals the consequences of closed breeding in German Shepherd Dogs (2025)
- Ancient mitochondrial genomes recovered from small vertebrate bones through minimally destructive DNA extraction: Phylogeography of the New Zealand gecko genus Hoplodactylus (2022)
Media experience
Dr Lachie Scarsbrook has written articles for The Conversation and has appeared on numerous podcasts and radio programmes. He has provided expert commentary for major international news outlets, including The New York Times, National Geographic and Time. Dr Scarsbrook also has extensive on-camera experience, and is currently collaborating with the Daily Mail on a 20-minute documentary about his research on dogs and the history of breeding, and with the BBC and Sky News to showcase ground-breaking research scheduled for publication in early 2026.
Recent media work
Languages
English