I am currently a PhD Candidate in Environmental Biology at UMass Boston. My interests include molecular ecology, molecular genetics, human genetics, invasive species, conservation, population genetics, and conservation genetics. I graduated from Connecticut College in 1998 as a biology major. For my senior honors thesis I worked with Paul Fell and studied the effects of an invasive plant (Phragmites australis, Common Reed) and various management strategies to control this plant on invertebrate populations in a tidal marsh on the Connecticut River. After college I worked as a research assistant (1999-2003) at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at the Ocular Molecular Genetics Institute. There I learned several techniques in molecular genetics and assisted in research projects studying human eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa or Leber congenital amaurosis. Influenced by my undergraduate experience, and post-college work experience, I wanted to combine molecular genetics with environmental research, so in 2003 I joined the lab of Rick Kesseli at the University of Massachusetts Boston biology department. Here I have developed genetic markers to study the population genetics of an invasive weed, Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica). I am studying the reproduction of this species by measuring the levels of genetic diversity and hybridization on the local and national level. In addition to studying knotweed, I have recently begun to study the population genetics of an endangered perennial forb, Eastern Silver Aster (Symphyotrichum concolor) with collaborators from the Nantucket Conservation Foundation. As a graduate student, I have been a teaching assistant for Genetics (252) and an NSF WISP teaching fellow. WISP is a teaching partnership of graduate students with local school districts to support and enrich existing science curricula and to help implement more advanced science instructional systems. email: jonnagrimsby@gmail.com Below are some attachments with information about my recent genetic survey of Japanese knotweed in the U.S. (for Grimsby and Kesseli 2009, Biological Invasions) |
