Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny

The Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) at the University of California, San Diego. Formally established in 2008, CARTA is a collaboration between faculty members of UCSD main campus, the UCSD School of Medicine, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and interested scientists at other institutions from around the world.

CARTA was formed in order to promote transdisciplinary research into anthropogeny - the study of human origins - drawing on methods from a number of traditional disciplines spanning the humanities, social, biomedical, biological, computational & engineering and physical & chemical sciences.

Before CARTA became an established and formal UCSD recognized Organized Research Unit, a multidisciplinary effort to study human origins had already been underway in the La Jolla area for over a decade, coordinated by the UCSD Project for Explaining the Origin of Humans (POH). The group involved local experts in San Diego as well as many others throughout the world. The primary activity of the group was to organize multi-disciplinary interactions amongst members (via meetings in La Jolla), and via secure internet-based mechanisms. These efforts have now been converted into a larger and more publicly active research program, which facilitate graduate and postgraduate education in relevant departments and programs.

The co-directors of the Institute are Ajit Varki, Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, UCSD, Margaret Schoeninger, Professor and former Chair of the Department of Anthropology, UCSD, and Fred Gage, Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Adjunct Professor of Neurosciences, UCSD

The Center sponsors a symposium series on human origins for both researchers and the public. It also partners with other San Diego institutions and organizations in sponsoring public lectures

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