[1] Shriver studied Biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, earning a B.S in 1987.

He furthered his studies and earned a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston in 1993.

Shriver's work is focused on admixture mapping,[2] signatures of natural selection, and phenotypic variability in common trait variation.

A major goal of his work is to apply these methods and understanding of genomic variation to studies of common diseases (e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes, adaptation to altitude, hypertension and prostate cancer), and to normal variation, in particular skin pigmentation and response to UVR.

[3][4][5][6] Shriver has consulted for and appeared in several documentaries about ancestry, race, and recent human evolution.