Jessica graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2005 with a BS in Biology and emphases in Chemistry, Psychology, and Pedagogy. After graduation, she worked for the University of Minnesota Upward Bound program, teaching low socioeconomic first-generation college-bound youth forensic science and psychology. Then, she worked as a research specialist and lab manager for a microbiology lab at the University of Illinois before attending graduate school there, where her research focused on genetic and biochemical mechanisms of pathogenic bacteria. She received her MS in Microbiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2010, and began at the ITA soon after.

Jessica is interested in epidemiology, health education, and health policy, and her goal is to apply her background of the molecular mechanisms of disease to better understand and promote population-level health. She assists Dr. Pamela McMahon and Dr. Amy Knudsen, researching and modeling the health outcomes and cost-effectiveness of lung and colorectal cancer screening methods.

• Annual screening strategies in BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation carriers: A comparative effectiveness analysis.
• FliZ regulates expression of the Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 invasion locus by controlling HilD protein activity in Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium.
• Proteolytic inactivation of tissue factor pathway inhibitor by bacterial omptins.