Wells led The Genographic Project from 2005 to 2015, as an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, and is the founder and executive director of personal genomics nonprofit The Insitome Institute.

Wells did his Ph.D. work under Richard Lewontin, and later did postdoctoral research with Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Sir Walter Bodmer.

EurAsia98, which in 1998 took him and his team from London to the Altai Mountains on the Mongolian border, via an overland route through the Caucasus, Iran and the -stans of Central Asia, was sponsored by Land Rover.

[4] From 2005-2015, Wells led the Genographic Project, undertaken by the National Geographic Society, IBM, and the Waitt Foundation,[5] which aimed to create a picture of how our ancestors populated the planet by analyzing DNA samples from around the world.

He has presented the results of his work around the world, including at the 2007 TED conference, where he spoke specifically about human diversity.

The focus was on Family History and DNA: Genetic Genealogy in 2013, where he was quoted as saying: Since 2005, the Genographic Project has used the latest genetic technology to expand our knowledge of the human story, and its pioneering use of DNA testing to engage and involve the public in the research effort has helped to create a new breed of "citizen scientist."

Geno 2.0 expands the scope for citizen science, harnessing the power of the crowd to discover new details of human population history.