Nicholas James Patterson (born 9 June 1947) is a mathematician working as a staff scientist at the

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...

with notable contributions to the area of computational genomics. His work has appeared in scientific journals such as ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

'', ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

'' and ''

Nature Genetics ''Nature Genetics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio. It was established in 1992. It covers research in genetics. The chief editor is Tiago Faial. The journal encompasses genetic and functional genomic studies o ...

''. His research has brought a better understanding of

early human migrations Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by ''Homo erectu ...

. He is among the group of scientists who have sequenced the Neanderthal genome in 2010. This was followed by the sequencing of a much higher quality

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While ...

genome, where the subject was from the Altai Mountains, in 2014. These studies have uncovered some unexpected facts about the

interbreeding between archaic and modern humans There is evidence for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic. The interbreeding happened in several independent events that included Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as seve ...

Biography

Patterson was an only child who grew up in the

Bayswater Bayswater is an area within the City of Westminster in West London. It is a built-up district with a population density of 17,500 per square kilometre, and is located between Kensington Gardens to the south, Paddington to the north-east, and ...

section of central London. Patterson received his B.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. His doctoral advisor was John G. Thompson. He initially worked for the British code-breaking agency

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

and the

Center for Communications Research Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

in Princeton. Following this

cryptology Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

work, Patterson worked at the quantitative trading firm

Renaissance Technologies Renaissance Technologies LLC, also known as RenTech or RenTec, is an American hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York, on Long Island, which specializes in systematic trading using quantitative models derived from mathematical and statist ...

. In 2001, Patterson joined the Center for Genome Research at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

. He briefly worked on gene expression data applied to cancer before switching to the study of human genetics. In 2012, Patterson developed

ADMIXTOOLS ADMIXTOOLS (or AdmixTools) is an R software package that is primarily used for analyzing admixture in population genetics. The initial version was originally developed by Nick Patterson and colleagues in 2012. The second reimplemented version, ...

, a software package written in R that is currently widely used by population geneticists.

Chess

Nick Patterson was a child

chess prodigy The term chess prodigy refers to a young child who possesses an aptitude for the game of chess that far exceeds what might be expected at their age. Their prodigious talent will often enable them to defeat experienced adult players and even titled ...

. He won the

Irish Chess Championship The Irish Chess Championship is the national Championship of Ireland, currently run by the Irish Chess Union (ICU), the FIDE-recognised governing body for the game. Below is the list of champions. The first champion was J.A. Porterfield Rynd, w ...

in 1969. In a long game in the Chess Olympiad of Siegen in 1970, where he played top board for Ireland, he met the Danish grandmaster

Bent Larsen Jørgen Bent Larsen (4 March 1935 – 9 September 2010) was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 196 ...

, who was one of the top 10 players in the world at the time, and managed to make a draw after 93 moves.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Nick Living people 1947 births American geneticists Broad Institute people Alumni of the University of Cambridge Chess Olympiad competitors Irish chess players Phylogenetics researchers