Dr. Ellen Greytak, Ph.D.

Dr. Ellen Greytak, Director of Bioinformatics, leads Parabon’s Snapshot DNA Analysis division, which provides genetic genealogy, DNA phenotyping, and kinship inference services to law enforcement and military agencies around the world. She has a PhD from Harvard University in the field of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. She is co-creator of Parabon’s Snapshot Kinship Inference technology, which provides highly accurate inferences about the familial relationship between two people based on their DNA, even if they are distantly related. Dr. Greytak is also one of the creators of the Snapshot DNA Phenotyping technology, the world’s first software application able to predict the ancestry and physical traits, including face shape, of an unknown person from a DNA sample. She is responsible for creating the underlying predictive models for DNA phenotyping and building the customized bioinformatics pipelines that combine various genetic analysis tools with machine learning. She directed Parabon’s software team in the creation of an evolutionary search algorithm to automatically optimize machine learning parameters. Recognized as an expert in the field of DNA phenotyping, Dr. Greytak has delivered many lectures on DNA phenotyping and kinship inference at forensics, genetics, and law enforcement conferences.