Darwin’s Ark was founded by two passionate pet lovers—a geneticist and an engineer—who noticed a glaring gap in scientific research. Many people had pets, but surprisingly little research focused on their health and wellbeing. This sparked the creation of Darwin’s Ark, a nonprofit organization that combines the perspectives of pet parents with the expertise of professional scientists to expand the scale and scope of pet research. Since then, Darwin’s Ark has helped thousands of pet owners contribute to the scientific understanding of their furry companions. We value pet owners’ insights—you know your animals best—and we believe in the transformative power of community science to drive discovery. You’re the expert on your pet. We’re experts in biological research. Using a community science model, we are bringing the expertise of pet owners together with leading genetics researchers to advance scientific understanding of pets’ genetics, behavior, and health. Our dog and cats research initiatives demonstrate that community science is world-class science. Through Darwin’s Dogs, thousands of pet owners joined forces with our researchers to dispel myths about the effect of breed on behavior. In addition, science coming out of Darwin’s Dogs has also shown the overlap in genetic causes of diseases, such as cancer, in dogs and humans. Darwin’s Ark is a nonprofit committed to advancing high-quality science. We do not own and will never sell your data. And we are committed to sharing what we learn with our community scientists and researchers around the world. Dog owners know their dogs. We’re asking dog owners to contribute their knowledge of their pets to help us learn more about how genetics influence health and behavior. Join us on this exciting journey! If you live in OH, PA or WV we need your help! Our dogs are family members, which means they share our homes and environment. As a result, we can learn a lot about environmental exposure and health risk by studying our canine companions. In the aftermath of the East Palestine Ohio train derailment, we are working with other researchers to collect information on dogs” environmental exposure to better understand the health effects of this incident. Cats have been our companions for centuries, yet we’ve just begun to unravel (like a ball of yarn!) the complex and diverse genetics that contribute to their health and behavior. We need cat owners’ understanding and expertise to launch this project! Join the mailing list below. We’re studying everything from behavior to food allergies. Our research depends on the support of our partner organizations. Elinor is an associate professor in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology at UMass Chan Medical School, and director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. As an evolutionary biologist, she uses genomics and bioinformatics to understand the origins and purposes of mammalian traits. She applies her expertise in mammalian genomics to a variety of research projects, including Zoonomia, an international collaboration to understand genomic diversity and evolution in mammals. Elinor is recognized as one of the world’s leading researchers in canine genetics, and uses community science to make her work accessible to the general public. An original member of the Human Genome Project, Charlie is an engineer and entrepreneur who operates at the nexus of business and big data. She has advised dozens of start-ups and founded seven companies, the last of which achieved unicorn status. Charlie brings nearly three decades of strategic and operational experience in business, science and technology to the community science space. Kasia is a senior research scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. An expert in population genetics, she has published large-scale research that has illuminated major events, extensive admixture, and used genetics to show fine-scale ancestry differences across human populations. Previously she worked at 23andMe, where she developed methods and machine learning pipelines for ancestry estimation. Lukas is a distinguished software engineer, cloud architect, and data scientist with three decades of experience supporting research at major life sciences research institutions. He is a Google Cloud Champion Innovator and has founded multiple IT consulting companies. He oversees the development of infrastructure for ultra-high scale data computation and storage at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and brings this depth of knowledge to Darwin’s Ark as a seasoned director of technology infrastructure development. Darwin’s Ark is a community science nonprofit engaging people and pets in scientific discovery. By bringing pet parents and scientists together, we are accelerating scientific understanding of dogs and cats. Our community science is powered by our contributors. Please support our work by donating today. Thank you!
Our Origin Story
The Science of Community Science
DOGS
PASSIVE SAMPLING PROJECT
CATS
OUR PARTNERS
LEADERSHIP
Elinor K. Karlsson
PhD – Co-founder, Chief Scientist
Charlie (Charlene) Lieu
MBA – Co-founder, Executive Director
Katarzyna (Kasia) Bryc, PhD
Director of Research & Scientific Engagement
Lukas Karlsson
Chief Technologist
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