Dr. Jessica Glass is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. She is also an Honorary Research Associate of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity and Fellow National of The Explorers Club.

Dr. Glass received a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University, a M.S. in Fisheries from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and returned to Yale for her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She studies the DNA of marine fish and invertebrates to address fisheries conservation and management questions, such as population genetic structure and biodiversity. Her current projects involve sequencing DNA from water samples collected across the Gulf of Alaska to understand how organisms will move as glaciers recede, detecting deep water sharks using DNA, and studying how sea stars have evolved antifreeze properties.

Over the past 11 years, Dr. Glass has straddled South Africa and Alaska, working closely with scientists at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. She has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation and USAID to conduct marine genomics research and lead field expeditions in South Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Mozambique, French Polynesia, and Alaska.

Jessica fell in love with Alaska when she was six years old and spent her summers training Iditarod sled dogs. After college, she worked on commercial fishing boats in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. She is a tribal member of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and is grateful to reside on the ancestral lands of the Dena people River in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Language spoke: English

Credit photo: The Explorers Club