Hawks graduated from Kansas State University in 1994 with degrees in French, English, and Anthropology.
His doctoral thesis was titled, "The Evolution of Human Population Size: A Synthesis of Paleontological, Archaeological, and Genetic Data."
In 2014, Hawks launched an online course on Coursera under the University of Wisconsin–Madison banner, on "Human Evolution: Past and Future".
Hawks believes that contemporary human mitochondrial genetics, including lack of any human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups from Eurasian archaic Homo sapiens may be in part due to natural selection of mtDNA on metabolic or other factors, rather than simple total replacement and genetic drift.
[9][10] It deals primarily with paleoanthropology and provides analysis of current research within the discipline, discussing the significance and implications of fossils related to human evolution, genetics and genomics of hominid populations (alive and extinct), archaeological topics, as well as general commentary and review of both scientific and popular literature.