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Dr. Lara Cassidy

Assistant Professor (Genetics)
29 WESTLAND ROW
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Lara Cassidy

Assistant Professor (Genetics)
29 WESTLAND ROW

 cassidl4@tcd.ie

 3531896 3521


Lara Cassidy graduated in Human Genetics from Trinity College Dublin in 2013, receiving a gold medal for her academic achievements. She worked as a research assistant under Prof. Jun Kitano at the National Institute of Genetics in Japan, publishing on speciation in stickleback fish populations. She was subsequently awarded a scholarship by the Irish Research Council to pursue a Ph.D. in ancient genomics at Prof. Dan Bradley's lab at the Trinity, which she was awarded in 2018. Her doctoral focus was the application of next generation sequencing technologies to the study of Irish prehistory, which resolved longstanding questions on the origins of the modern population. She expanded upon this work as a postdoctoral researcher, before soon joining the staff at the Department of Genetics as an assistant professor in 2020. Throughout her career, Lara has published extensively and with wide-reaching impact in ancient genomics. Her research has been repeatedly featured in top journals such as Nature, Science, PNAS and Nature Communications and covered by major international news outlets (New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, BBC). In 2019, she was awarded an honorary life fellowship at the Adelphi Genetics Forum.
  Archaeology   Genetic Selection   Genetics   Genomes, Genomics   Molecular Biology
Details Date From Date To
Treasurer and Vice-Chairperson of Irish Society of Human Genetics September 2022 September 2025
Chairperson of Irish Society of Human Genetics September 2025 Present
Bruno Romero González, Margarita Reyes, Bernardo Arriaza, Lara M. Cassidy, Mauricio Moraga Vergara, Constanza de la Fuente Castro, Shigeki Nakagome, The genomic identity of early smallpox in South America, Science, 393, (6810), 2026, p504-508 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Lara M Cassidy, Miles Russell, Martin Smith, Gabrielle Delbarre, Paul Cheetham, Harry Manley, Valeria Mattiangeli, Emily M Breslin, Iseult Jackson, Maeve McCann, Harry Little, Ciarán G O"Connor, Beth Heaslip, Daniel Lawson, Phillip Endicott, Daniel G Bradley, Continental influx and pervasive matrilocality in Iron Age Britain, Nature, 637, 2025, p1136 - 1142, Notes: [Cited by: 49 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Madeleine Murray, Seiichi Nakamura, Melvin Fuentes, Rolando Canizales, Omar Talavera, Salvador Varela, Zoila Madrid, Carlos Carbajal, Masahiro Ogawa, Minoru Yoneda, Lara M. Cassidy, Takashi Gakuhari, Shigeki Nakagome, Ancient genomes reveal demographic trajectories during the Classic Maya period, Current Biology, 35, (11), 2025, p2709 - 2719.e5, p2709-2719.e5 , Notes: [Cited by: 1 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Iseult Jackson, Peter Woodman, Marion Dowd, Linda Fibiger, Lara M Cassidy, Ancient Genomes From Bronze Age Remains Reveal Deep Diversity and Recent Adaptive Episodes for Human Oral Pathobionts, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 41, (3), 2024, Notes: [Cited by: 14 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Cooke N.P., Murray M., Cassidy L.M., Mattiangeli V., Okazaki K., Kasai K., Gakuhari T., Bradley D.G., Nakagome S., Genomic imputation of ancient Asian populations contrasts local adaptation in pre- and post-agricultural Japan, iScience, 27, (110050), 2024, Notes: [Cited by: 5 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Jolijn A. M. Erven, Amelie Scheu, Marta Pereira Verdugo, Lara M. Cassidy, Ningbo Chen, Birgit Gehlen, Martin Street, Ole Madsen, Victoria E. Mullin, A High-Coverage Mesolithic Aurochs Genome and Effective Leveraging of Ancient Cattle Genomes Using Whole Genome Imputation, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 41, (5), 2024, Notes: [Cited by: 14 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Jackson I, Mattiangeli V, Cassidy LM, Murphy E, Bradley DG., Millennium-old pathogenic Mendelian mutation discovery for multiple osteochondromas from a Gaelic Medieval graveyard, Eur J Hum Genet, 2023, Notes: [Cited by: 9 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Niall P Cooke, Valeria Mattiangeli, Lara M Cassidy, Kenji Okazaki, Kenji Kasai, Daniel G Bradley, Takashi Gakuhari, Shigeki Nakagome, Genomic insights into a tripartite ancestry in the Southern Ryukyu Islands, Evolutionary Human Sciences, 5, 2023, pe23-, Notes: [Cited by: 10 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Ariano B, Mattiangeli V, Breslin EM, Parkinson EW, McLaughlin TR, Thompson JE, Power RK, Stock JT, Mercieca-Spiteri B, Stoddart S, Malone C, Gopalakrishnan S, Cassidy LM, Bradley DG., Ancient Maltese genomes and the genetic geography of Neolithic Europe, Current Biology, 32, (12), 2022, p2668-2680.e6 , Notes: [Cited by: 47 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Maisano Delser P., Jones E.R., Hovhannisyan A., Cassidy L., Pinhasi R., Manica A., A curated dataset of modern and ancient high-coverage shotgun human genomes, Scientific Data, 8, (1), 2021, Notes: [Cited by: 14 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

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Lara M Cassidy, Ancient DNA traces family lines and political shifts in the Avar empire, Nature, 629, (8011), 2024, p287 - 288, p287-288 , Notes: [News and Views Cited by: 1 (26.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Islands apart? Genomics perspectives on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Ireland. in, editor(s)Alasdair Whittle, Joshua Pollard, Susan Greaney , Ancient DNA and the European Neolithic: Relations and Descent, Oxbow Books, 2023, [Lara M Cassidy], Notes: [Cited by: 10 (26.07.2026)], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
A genomic survey of the Ranelagh population in, editor(s)Murphy E and Delany S , The Forgotten Cemetery: Excavations at Ranelagh, Co. Roscommon, 2022, pp194 - 198, [Cassidy LM, Jackson I, Mattiangeli V], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Cassidy L.M., The first genomic portrait of a Neanderthal family, Nature, 610, (7932), 2022, p454 - 455, p454-455 , Notes: [News and Views], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Lara M. Cassidy, Sizing it up: a commentary on "An archaeology of Ireland for the Information Age."2, Emania, 25, 2020, p45 - 52, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Lara Cassidy, JA Sheridan, Ancient DNA in Ireland: isolation, migration and elite incest, British Archaeology, 2020, p32-41 , Notes: [Cited by: 9 (28.07.2026)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Cassidy LM., A steppe in the right direction., Nature ecology & evolution, 3, (6), 2019, p877-878 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED
LM Cassidy, DG Bradley, Ancient DNA and Irish human prehistory: uncovering the past through palaeogenomics, Journal of Irish Archaeology, 24, 2015, p1-8 , Notes: [Cited by: 2 (28.07.2026)], Review Article, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Honorary Life Fellowship from the Adelphi Genetics Forum (previously The Galton Institute) October 2019
Best Postdoctoral Talk, ISHG Conference Sept 2018
Gold medalist in Human Genetics (BA) May 2013
Leslie Bloomer Prize in Human Genetics (BA) May 2012
Overall winner in the Life Sciences Category at the Undergraduate Awards 2013
Our group is is working to create a dense temporal catalogue of Irish genetic variation across 10,000 years of the island's habitation. Within this there are several major streams of inquiry: 1. Natural Selection and Disease: Leveraging the unique case study that Ireland presents, as an isolated island with long-term demographic continuity, to study the genomic architecture of mutational load, disease and selective forces. 2. Demography: Characterising prehistoric and Medieval demography in Ireland, Britain and further afield using haplotype-based approaches to provide fine-scale resolution. This includes defining the geographic and cultural forces that have encouraged the build up and break down of genetic structure across Ireland and Europe through time. 3. Social Organisation: Ancient genomes also provide evidence of kinship and descent systems in the absence of written records. They can inform on social stratification, inequality and elite mobility, allowing us to reconstruct the social structure of past societies. 4. Microbiome and Pathogen Evolution: Alongside human genomes we are also carrying out a large survey ancient microbiomes, documenting shifts associated with dietary transitions and host-pathogen co-evolution.