JEELLA ACEDO

Dr. Jeella Acedo (she/her) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Physics at MRU and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary. She teaches courses in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. 

Her research focuses on strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance, including the discovery of new antimicrobial molecules, environmental surveillance of antimicrobial resistance genes and organisms, and the development of training platforms that equip trainees with a One Health perspective on addressing this global challenge. 

She is the first NSERC Discovery Grant holder in the Department of Chemistry and Physics. In addition to the NSERC DG, her research is funded through the New Frontiers in Research Fund, Petro Canada Emerging Innovators Award, MRU Internal Research Grants, among others. Her research group is part of The Antimicrobial Resistance - One Health Consortium and the Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Network: CAN-AMR-Net. 

She also engages in SOTL research focusing on the development of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), ensuring that every enrolled student has the opportunity to gain hands-on research experience. 

Prior to coming to MRU, Jeella was an NSERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the research group of Prof. Wilfred van der Donk, who is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (WAV Website). 

She received her PhD in Chemistry in 2017 from the University of Alberta, where she was an Alberta Innovates Health Solutions Scholar under the supervision of Prof. John Vederas (JCV Website). 

Before coming to UofA, she worked at the University of the Philippines Los Baños for 3 years as a university instructor and taught laboratory courses in organic, analytical, general, and physical chemistry (see list here). Jeella obtained her BSc in Agricultural Chemistry, graduating magna cum laude, from the same university in 2009.