Dr. Paul Maier is the Senior Population Geneticist at FamilyTreeDNA and Gene by Gene, where he builds ancestry estimation tools, and studies the genetic history of human life on earth. Since 2018, he has developed numerous products and features, including myOrigins® 3.0, the Chromosome Painter, Big Y Age Estimates, the FTDNATiP™ Report, Geo-Genetic Triangulation (for Beethoven research), the phylogeographic tool Globetrekker, and most recently Mitotree, the largest human haplotype tree. Paul earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, studying the genetic past, present, and future of a much squishier creature, the Yosemite toad in the Sierra Nevada of California. His research used conservation genomics to inform the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s strategy for this federally threatened species. His work is published in journals such as Heredity, Evolution, Frontiers, Evolutionary Applications, Current Biology, and Nature Scientific Reports. While earning his doctorate, he worked as lead biologist for the US Geological Survey, and taught university students about genetics, evolution, zoology, and herpetology. His scientific outreach tries to emphasize the simplicity of DNA, amidst a complex field. He has given numerous talks, including at RootsTech, Jefferson Public Radio, the Int’l Conference on Genetic Genealogy, Portland ISOGG, and East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference. He is passionate about using DNA to reconstruct the hidden stories of human and wildlife populations.