Manfred Kayser is currently Professor of Forensic Molecular Biology at Erasmus University Rotterdam and chairs the Department of Forensic Molecular Biology at the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam. He received a Diploma degree in Biology from the University of Leipzig, a PhD in Biology/ Genetics from the Humboldt University Berlin, and got his Habilitation in Genetics from the University of Leipzig. After postdoctoral work at the Pennsylvania State University he was at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig until he moved to Rotterdam. His research interest is in human evolutionary genetics, the genetics of human population history, and the genetics of human appearance, as well as forensic molecular biology and forensic genetics.