G. Ozan Bozdag
Portrait of G. Ozan Bozdag in the lab

G. Ozan Bozdag

Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Instructor
School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Tech

I’m an evolutionary geneticist. I run evolution experiments to explore genetic, molecular, cellular, and organismal basis of adaptation.

In 2018, I started what is now the Multicellularity Long-Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE) in snowflake yeast, and I still run it day to day with the Ratcliff Lab. Within 3,000 generations, clusters that started out microscopic became macroscopic: 20,000-fold larger in volume and as tough as wood. The experiment is now past 10,000 generations, with 15 populations and more than 3,000 frozen samples, and it is the longest-running evolution experiment on multicellularity. Here is how it started.

Before that, I did my Ph.D. with Duncan Greig at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, working on gene duplication, mitochondrial-nuclear coevolution, and the genetics of a reproductive barrier between two yeast species. My M.Sc. at Izmir Institute of Technology was on the functional genetics of stress tolerance in plants and yeast.

I also teach. Since 2022, I have taught regularly at Georgia Tech as an adjunct instructor, mostly Evolutionary Biology and Microbiology Lab. I redesigned both around active learning, and they received CIOS Honor Roll teaching awards in 2024 and 2025. I have trained more than 15 students, served on seven Ph.D. committees (co-advising four), and since 2022 I have been the day-to-day advisor for students in the Ratcliff Lab. More on teaching.

Research interests: origins of multicellularity, speciation genetics, evolution of selfish genetic elements, evolution of genome architecture, yeast genetics, experimental evolution, and omics and bioinformatics.