Meet Jessica:

Jessica is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at UBC and an Investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. A genetic epidemiologist by training, Dr. Dennis applies computational methods to large-scale genomic and population health data to identify the basis of human health and disease. Dr. Dennis completed postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, where she was a fellow in the interdisciplinary CIHR-STAGE Program (Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategic Training for Advanced Genetic Epidemiology). She also holds a MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa and a BSc in Biology (minor in Genetics) from the University of Guelph. Outside of work, Jessica enjoys running in Pacific Spirit Park, reading, and hunting for treasures on the beach with her husband and 4 children.

More about her work in the Dennis Lab:

Jessica uses a life-course perspective to understand how our genes, which are fixed at conception, affect how we respond to time-varying environments and eventually give rise to the traits and conditions that manifest across the life course. A primary focus of her research is to elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying brain-related traits like psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions.