Physical anthropologist specializing in genetic anthropology and evolutionary ecology. His research interests focus on studying the effects of subsistence systems and social structures on human biology, using quantitative methods from population genetics, demography, and multivariate statistics, combined with qualitative data obtained through extended fieldwork.

He has investigated the microevolutionary effects of transhumant dairy agro-pastoralism characteristic of the Agricultural Communities in the Coquimbo Region. His approach covers a scenario that combines the harsh environmental conditions of the semi-arid Northern Chico, the fundamental role of dairy pastoralism in the herding lifestyle, and the region's history of mestizaje, constituting an ideal setting to analyze the evolutionary costs and benefits of carrying genes that enable lactose digestion.

He is researching the genetic effects of emigration and changes in the norms of succession and inheritance of communal rights in the Agricultural Communities of the Coquimbo Region, as part of the FONDECYT Initiation Project No. 11160402. Since communal rights, surnames, and genes are transmitted analogously to descendants, his work combines genetic information with genealogical and ethnographic data to reconstruct possible histories of changes in succession and inheritance systems. This analysis uses Bayesian statistics and comparative phylogenetic methods to quantify the probabilities of different scenarios.