Ranjan Deka, PhD, professor in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences, has been elected to the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts as a corresponding member. Deka was honored for his outstanding contributions to the development of science.

 

Deka, a molecular population geneticist, has a longstanding association with Croatian science.

 

“I have been conducting genetic studies on cardiometabolic traits among the Adriatic islanders since 2000. These island populations have a traditional lifestyle and adhere to a Mediterranean diet. Yet, prior studies show that they have a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome, including obesity. We suspect genetics play an important role. These are isolated populations that provide advantage for genome mapping studies. I have been working with anthropologists at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb for nearly 20 years,” Deka says.

 

Previously, Deka received the Gorjanovic Krambergeri award from the Croatian Anthropological Society and the Croatian Academy of Sciences in 2010 for his work on population genetics. In 2018, he was elected to the Scientific Council for Anthropological Studies of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

 

Deka also is the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded Molecular Epidemiology in Children’s Environmental Health Training Program for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and clinical fellows.