C. Brandon Ogbunu ’10 PhD

C. Brandon Ogbunu is an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. He is a computational biologist whose research investigates complex problems in epidemiology, evolutionary and population genetics, and evolution. His work utilizes a range of methods, from experimental evolution to biochemistry, applied mathematics, and evolutionary computation.

After graduating from Howard University in 2002, Ogbunu traveled to Kenya on a Fulbright fellowship. There, while studying the chemical ecology of malaria, he became captivated by evolution. When he returned to the United States, Ogbunu studied medicine at Yale University and completed his PhD in microbiology in 2010. His dissertation revolved around a concept called “evolvability”— the capacity of organisms to evolve— in the context of infectious disease.

From there, Ogbunu decided to cultivate his interest in data science with a postdoctoral fellowship at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, where he studied population genetics under the supervision of Daniel Hartl.

After completing his postdoc training, Ogbunu taught for two years at Brown University, and in 2020, he joined the Yale faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.