Princeton University

Princeton University

Graduate and undergraduate students from all over the world and from different backgrounds come together at Princeton to share ideas and experiences.

John Hopfield of Princeton won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Hopfield, an emeritus professor of molecular biology, and Howard A. Prior Life Sciences Professor shares the 2024 Nobel Prize with Geoffrey E. Hinton of Toronto.

Honoring a Nobel Prize winner who was curious

Linking Education and Service

As a liberal arts university, Princeton strongly emphasizes service. It is fundamental to how Princetonians serve the public good and permeates the interests and aspirations of our students, professors, staff, and alums.

The university has reaffirmed its dedication to assisting students and graduates in using their educations to advance society as a whole and themselves. We provide the resources and assistance to enable students, teachers, and alums to consider how their research, education, and lives can benefit the country, the world, and humanity. Princeton University.

Living Purposeful Lives
Princetonians seek service in various contexts, including their careers, vocations, and roles.Throughout their stay at Princeton, our students collaborate to suggest and carry out civic involvement projects with creativity and intention. Classes and research funded by the Program for Community Engaged Scholarship (ProCES) offer opportunities for participation (Link is external). Through campus events and student organizations, many call the Peace Centre for Civic Engagement (Link is external) home.

Our graduates serve others worldwide, taking part in civic life and living fulfilling lives linked to a greater good and influence. Over 15,000 alum volunteer each year to support Princeton and university-sponsored initiatives (Link is external). In addition to the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni (Link is external), alums can serve with their class, allied groups, regional associations, and more. Top honors are awarded to undergraduate and graduate alums for their contributions to society each year on Alumni Day (Link is external).

Stressing Service Commitment

Princeton’s unofficial motto was changed in 2016 to “In the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity,” combining words from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Class of 1976, and Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, who was Princeton’s president before becoming president of the United States. Princeton University

At the intersection of the paths on Nassau Hall’s front lawn is a medallion bearing the unofficial slogan.

Humanities

Humanities scholarship shapes and develops us as people and as social participants. The arts and humanities offer vital insight into what matters in life, into the nature of civilization, and the ability — and limitations — of people to comprehend societies different from their own at a time when technology offers stunning new possibilities and cultures collide in ways that are both exciting and dangerous. Princeton University

The Natural Sciences

Princeton’s students and scholars are engaged in investigations across the scientific spectrum, from campus labs to Antarctic edge-of-space balloon launches (shown at left) to biodiversity study in the Kenyan savannah. Princeton University

Social Sciences

Princeton’s social science research goal is to increase our understanding of human society and tackle some of the biggest societal issues of the twenty-first century, whether that be enhancing national security, investigating poverty, elucidating human behavior, or critically examining international trade. Princeton University

Engineering

The School of Engineering and Applied Science is exceptional because it combines the best features of a top liberal arts college with the advantages of a world-class research institute. Princeton Engineering strives for bare knowledge and interdisciplinary partnerships in both its research and teaching to enable technology to address complex societal issues effectively. The university is dedicated to preparing all its students, including engineering students, to lead in a technologically advanced society. Princeton University

Princeton geneticists are rewriting the story of Neanderthals and other early people.

People have been curious about these ancient hominins since the first Neanderthal bones were found. What distinguishes them from us? To what extent do they resemble us? Did they get along with our ancestors? Take them on? Admire them? Additional issues have been raised by the recent discovery of a Neanderthal-like group known as the Denisovans that lived in Asia and Oceania. Princeton University

A global team of geneticists and AI specialists is expanding our shared hominin past. The researchers, led by Joshua Akey, a professor at Princeton’s Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, have discovered a genetic exchange and mixing history that points to a closer relationship between these early human tribes than was previously thought. Princeton University

As an associate research scholar in Akey’s lab, Liming Li, a professor at Southeast University’s Department of Medical Genetics and Developmental Biology in Nanjing, China, said, “This is the first time that geneticists have discovered several waves of contemporary human-Neanderthal mixing. Princeton University

“We now know that there has been contact between modern humans and Neanderthals for the vast majority of human history,” Akey said. About 600,000 years ago, the hominins that are our closest ancestors broke away from the Neanderthal family tree, and about 250,000 years ago, they developed the physical traits that we have today.

“Modern humans have been interacting with Neanderthal populations for approximately 200,000 years, from that time until the Neanderthals vanished,” he said. Princeton University

Their work’s findings are published in the most recent edition of the journal Science (Link is external).

Once thought to be slow-witted and slow-moving, Neanderthals are now viewed as expert hunters and tool makers who used advanced skills to treat each other’s wounds and were well-suited to survive in the frigid climate of Europe. Princeton University

(Note: Although all of these hominid populations are human, most archaeologists and anthropologists prefer the shorthand Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans to avoid using the terms “Neanderthal humans,” “Denisovan humans,“ and “ancient-versions-of-our-own-kind-of-humans.”

Charting the gene flow

Akey and his team analyzed the gene flow between the hominin groups during the last quarter-million years using genomes from 2,000 live humans, three Neanderthals, and one Denisovan.

The scientists employed IBDmix, a genetic tool they created a few years ago that decodes the genome using machine learning methods. Prior studies relied on comparing human genomes to a “reference population“ of contemporary people who were thought to have little to no Denisovan or Neanderthal DNA.

Even those mentioned populations, who reside thousands of miles south of the Neanderthal caves, have trace amounts of Neanderthal DNA, which was most likely brought south by travelers (or their descendants), according to research done by Akey’s team.

Akey’s researchers used IBDmix to determine that the initial wave of contact occurred between 200 and 250,000 years ago, followed by waves 100 and 120,000 years ago, and the most significant wave occurred between 50 and 60,000 years ago.

This stands in stark contrast to earlier genetic data. According to Akey, “the majority of genetic evidence to date indicates that modern humans evolved in Africa 250,000 years ago, remained there for the following 200,000 years, and then made the decision to leave Africa 50,000 years ago and spread throughout the rest of the world.”

“Our models indicate that there was not a prolonged period of stasis, but that we have been migrating out of Africa and returning to Africa since the emergence of modern humans,“ he added. “This story, in my opinion, is about dispersal; modern humans have been travelling around and coming into contact with Neanderthals and Denisovans far more frequently than we previously realised.”

Archaeological and paleoanthropological studies that indicate cultural and tool interchange between hominin groups align with that picture of humans on the move.

A peek into DNA

• Li and Akey’s pivotal discovery was finding modern human DNA in Neanderthal genomes rather than vice versa. “How mating with Neanderthals affected modern human phenotypes and our evolutionary history has been the focus of the vast majority of genetic work over the last ten years—but these questions are relevant and interesting in the reverse case, too,“ Akey said.
• They concluded that the progeny of those initial waves of Neanderthal-modern matings had to have remained with the Neanderthals, leaving no trace in extant humans. “We are seeing these earlier dispersals in ways that we weren’t able to before because we can now incorporate the Neanderthal component into our genetic studies,“ Akey stated.
• Finding that the Neanderthal population was even lower than initially thought was the last piece of the puzzle.
• Diversity, or variation, has long been used as a stand-in for population size in genetic modeling. The population grows as gene diversity increases. However, Akey’s team demonstrated using IBDmix that a sizable portion of that apparent variety was derived from DNA sequences from the much larger population of modern humans.
• Consequently, the effective Neanderthal population was reduced from roughly 3,400 breeding individuals to approximately 2,400.

The disappearance of Neanderthals

When taken together, the discoveries show how the Neanderthals disappeared from the record about 30,000 years ago.

“I prefer not to use the word extinction because I believe that Neanderthals were mostly assimilated,“ Akey stated. According to his theory, Neanderthal populations gradually declined until the last surviving members were assimilated into contemporary human societies.

Fred Smith, a professor of anthropology at Illinois State University, initially proposed this “assimilation model“ in 1989. “I think it’s really interesting that our results provide strong genetic data consistent with Fred’s hypothesis,“ Akey said.

He claimed that Neanderthals had been on the verge of extinction for a long time. “A population already at risk will see a significant decrease if their numbers are reduced by 10% or 20%, as our estimates do.

Modern people gradually and methodically degraded the beach, much like waves crashing on a beach. Once we demographically overtook them, Neanderthals were eventually assimilated into contemporary human communities.