jen is a biologist with a foundation in biochemistry and molecular biology. Her doctoral research at UCLA focused on iron-dependent regulation of microRNA biogenesis, including the discovery of DGCR8’s RNA heme-binding domain—the first RNA-binding motif of this kind. Postdoctoral work UCSC at the molecular center for RNA, focused on the dynamics of co-transcriptional splicing. Current projects are focused in molecular ecology, leveraging environmental DNA (eDNA) to track ecological responses to environmental disruptions such as, wildfires, floods, agriculture and Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). By analyzing biodiversity shifts across ecosystems, her work seeks to identify how biological communities adapt to disruption, and to provide insights for conservation and adaptive land management in rapidly changing environments.