Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (pronounced [luˈiːdʒi ˈluːka kaˈvalli ˈsfɔrtsa]; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist.

Cavalli-Sforza initiated a new field of research by combining the concrete findings of demography with a newly available analysis of blood groups in an actual human population.

Edwards, another genetics student of Ronald A. Fisher, Cavalli-Sforza pioneered statistical methods for estimating evolutionary trees (phylogenies).

Many of these influential and fundamental early papers were reprinted in 2018 in a volume focusing on A. W. F. Edwards, and dedicated to Cavalli-Sforza and Ian Hacking.

Cavalli-Sforza conducted several studies of how language differences may serve as barriers to gene flow between adjacent human populations.

His studies of human migration have tested hypotheses of linguists Merritt Ruhlen and Joseph Greenberg about language "superfamilies".

[8] According to an article published in The Economist, the work of Cavalli-Sforza "challenges the assumption that there are significant genetic differences between human races, and indeed, the idea that 'race' has any useful biological meaning at all".