An enthusiastic experimentalist and leader, Jennifer joins Octant as a Scientist on the Synthetic Biology team.

Jennifer spent the past 5 years at Zymergen, where she had the opportunity to contribute both scientifically and as a team leader. She initially worked on developing high-throughput methods for genetic engineering of microbes using robotics. She then moved to the Automation team, where she led the Automation Applications team and was part of the core Automation leadership team. This work involved people management, building light but effective processes around cross-team communication, prioritizing work requests from all of the R&D and Ops lab departments across Zymergen, and creating tools for the team such as career ladders and team goals. Prior to Zymergen, Jennifer worked briefly at Molecular Devices, where she supported their high content imaging system (IXM). Jennifer did her postdoc work at Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, in the lab of Jost Enninga, where she worked on better understanding host factors involved in Salmonella infection of the human gut. She did her PhD work at UCSD with Kit Pogliano, using imaging and biochemical techniques to study sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. 

In her free time, Jennifer is an avid rock climber. Her favorite places to climb are Red Rock, NV and Siurana, Spain, where she and her husband have spent many vacations. More recently, she has spent less time climbing and more time with her daughter, Hazel, who was born in May 2020 and is super fun to get to know as she can express more and more each day.