Jessica Lee Joyner, Ph.D.
Georgia State University
Jessica Lee Joyner investigates the human impact on local microbial ecology through research with her students. Projects have focused on the urban ecosystem, exploring the urban microbial diversity of the built environment with green infrastructures and localized water quality conditions. Through integrating public health and environmental health, she incorporates communicating science to diverse audiences into her courses and her own research outreach. Student involvement in research is important; therefore, she emphasizes research skills in lecture courses as well as offer specific course-based research experiences (CUREs) for bioinformatics and environmental microbiology. Recent discipline based educational research (DBER) efforts have focused on the impact of CUREs for undergraduate student retention in biology and career readiness. Her passion for learning and protecting the environment motivates her to challenge students, friends, and family to consider their role as stewards of the environmental resources that support our lives daily. When not preparing lessons or analyzing data, she is busy experimenting in the kitchen or outside (running or hiking with the family).