http://www.spph.ubc.ca/person/jennifer-gardy/

Dr. Gardy is a Senior Scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, responsible for the genomics/molecular epidemiology portfolio in Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Services. An Assistant Professor in SPPH since March, 2013, Dr. Gardy is also an Associate Member of UBC’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Faculty of Science, and she holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Public Health Genomics. She obtained her BSc in Cell Biology & Genetics from UBC in 2000 and completed her PhD at Simon Fraser University in 2006 under Dr. Fiona Brinkman, working on bacterial genomics and bioinformatics-based predictive methods. She completed three years of postdoctoral training in the R.E.W. Hancock laboratory at UBC, using systems biology techniques to study the mammalian innate immune response and working on visualization tools to facilitate scientists’ exploration of biological network data. Dr. Gardy joined BCCDC in 2009, where she works in the emerging field of genomic epidemiology, combining whole genome sequencing with both new and old epidemiological techniques, including information visualization, to understand the origins, evolution, and transmission dynamics of outbreak organisms, including tuberculosis.

Dr. Gardy is also a passionate science communicator involved in a number of science media projects, including regular appearances on CBC Television’s documentary series The Nature of Things and a recurring guest host role on Discovery Channel’s nightly science newsmagazine, Daily Planet. Her first children’s book, “It’s Catching: the Infectious World of Germs and Microbes” was published by Owlkids Books in 2014 was shortlisted for several children’s book awards.