Student Profiles

Jessica, an Antarctic Scientist, is keenly interested in aerospace medicine, the study of sustainable human health in weightlessness and extreme (polar) climates. She received her B.A. in Astrogeophysics with Honors and a minor in German from Colgate University in 2022. 

At Colgate, her work centered on planetary hydrology and geomorphology in Antarctica and on Mars.  She conducted research and co-authored multiple papers discussing the climatic significance of boulder banding across Martian glaciers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the remote sensing of desert playa hydropatterns in Remote Sensing, and organic matter accumulation and electrical conductivity in Antarctic water tracks. These findings have been critical in understanding contemporary climate change (i.e. sea-level rise, oceanic thermal expansion) and Martian paleoclimates. Her planetary science research culminated in a six-week polar expedition to the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica during the 2022-23 austral summer field season. 

Prior to her DPhil, Jessica completed a two-year NIH Postbaccalaureate IRTA Fellowship, under the supervision of Dr. Dan Benjamini, in the Multiscale Imaging and Integrative Biophysics Unit at the National Institute on Aging.  This resulted in a first author publication in Human Brain Mapping, detailing a novel, in vivo protocol that disentangles diffusion frequency‐dependence, tensor shape, and relaxation within tissue microstructure using multidimensional MRI (MD-MRI).  The goal is to apply this work to age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and related dementias.

Jessica has been honored with the Valentine Piotrow Prize in German Excellence, DAAD Rise Fellowship for scientific research in Erfurt, Germany, Delta Phi Alpha, Phi Beta Kappa Daniel H. Saracino Prize for Scholarship of Exceptional Merit, Physics and Astronomy Joseph C. Amato and Anthony F. Aveni Award for Student Research, NIH Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA), the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship, and the Antarctica Service Medal. Most recently, she was recognized as one of 100 Polar Women by the Women in Polar Science Network and featured on the Black Women in Science Podcast for her research at Colgate, in Antarctica, and at the NIH.

As an NIH-Oxford Scholar, Jessica is studying mechanosensor response of endothelial cells (vascular and lymphatic) to turbulent flow and shear stress.