Off the Beaten Path: An Interview with Spencer Wells

S pencer Wells has this geneticist’s dream job. He transits the globe, collecting DNA samples, building collaborations, and orchestrating what may be the most extensive and fascinating project on human origins yet, sponsored by one of the most respected institutions in the US—The National Geographic Society. There, Wells holds the oxymoronically named post of ‘‘Explorer-inResidence’’ and runs the Genographic Project (www.nationalgeographic.com/ genographic), whose mission is to collect and genotype the Y and mitochondrial chromosomes from people the world over in order to track male and female lineages, respectively, and thereby infer migratory patterns throughout human history. I was curious to learn how someone so young (he started working with National Geographic when he was only 33) could plunge into a project of this magnitude. The answer is that Wells is a man of many facets, vision, and energy. And he has a knack for creating the opportunity. Happily, I had less difficulty pinning him down than I had anticipated. He suggested getting together at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in New Orleans, where he was scheduled to give a talk. We held our interview at the open-air Café du Monde in the old French Quarter, where we were embraced by a warm breeze and the cacophony of traffic, tourists, and two busking saxophonists. Our conversation ranged over two cups of café au lait; six continents; and a medley of ‘‘The Pink Panther,’’ ‘‘As Time Goes By,’’ and two rounds of ‘‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’’ Picture, if you will, an Indiana Jones type, passionately delving into ancient mysteries, but in Wells’s case, sunburned, hatless, and minus the whip.