Hendrik Nicholas Poinar (born May 31, 1969 in D.C, United States)[1] is an evolutionary biologist specializing in ancient DNA.
[4] He is currently director of the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
degrees from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo in 1992 and 1999 respectively before earning a Ph.D. in 1999 from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, after which he was a postdoctoral researcher from 2000 to 2003 at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
[1] In 2003 he was hired as an assistant professor in the anthropology department at McMaster University in Canada.
[6] In 2003, Poinar and others from the Max Planck Institute published genetic sequences isolated from coprolites of the extinct Shasta giant ground sloth,[4] with an estimated age of 10500 years using radiocarbon dates.