Eske Willerslev is an evolutionary geneticist notable for his pioneering work in molecular anthropology, palaeontology, and ecology. He currently holds the Prince Philip Professorship in Ecology and Evolution at University of Cambridge, UK and the Lundbeck Foundation Professorship in Evolution at Copenhagen University, Denmark. He is director of the Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics, a research associate at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and a professorial fellow at St John's College, Cambridge.

Eske Willerslev started out as a microbiologist, then moved into the field of invertebrate systematics, and later into plant and mammal ecology. Over the past six years. Willerslev has focused his research in understanding processes forming contemporary human disease load, and human genetic diversity and distribution. He has more than 200-peer-reviewed papers (first publication 1999), of which more than 40 are published in the journals Nature and Science.

He has been heading several largescale multidisciplinary international research projects and has communicated his scientific work to the public through multiple films, popular books.