Research Professor at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE-CSIC-UPF). He is one of the leading scientists in Europe on palaeogenetics, i.e. the retrieval and analysis of ancient genomes.

He participated in the Neandertal Genome Project, and led the first retrieval of the genome of an 8000 year-old European hunter-gatherer individual and the first retrieval of a Mediterranean early farmer. Since then, he has contributed to the analysis of hundreds of past individuals from different continents and archaeological horizons, unravelling with these data past migrations as well as gender biases and social issues. He has received several awards for popular science books and for his research. He has written a book for MIT Press titled Inequality: A Genetic History to be published in 2022.