The Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza Lecture

The Cavalli-Sforza lecture is named in memory of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (1922-2018). 

Prof. Cavalli-Sforza was a true renaissance scientist renowned for towering contributions to genetics and to the study of human evolutionary history. He served on the Stanford faculty from 1971 to 1992, continuing as an active emeritus faculty member until 2008.

Prof. Cavalli-Sforza was a pioneer in computational, evolutionary, and human genomics. As early as 1962, he performed some of the first computer simulations for population genetics, anticipating an approach that would become central to the field. His remarkably creative work on phylogenies provided the foundation for the algorithmic inference of evolutionary trees from genetic data. His efforts to catalog population-level allele frequencies of blood-group and immunological markers for the study of human population history provided an early compendium whose encyclopedic approach is now characteristic of the age of genomics.

Although Prof. Cavalli-Sforza had retired to Italy in 2008 before CEHG was founded, the integrative and humanistic spirit of his work has been reflected in the CEHG community since the time of its founding in 2012. In 2025, the keynote lecture at the CEHG Annual Symposium has been named in memory of Prof. Cavalli-Sforza.