Biography

Dr. Jennifer Easterwood has been a professor in Queens’ Biology Department for almost 18 years. Her courses include Foundations of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Immunology, Genetics and an online outbreak course in the general education program.

She has two primary research projects currently underway. One of these projects is the result of a departmental collaboration with the Carolina Raptor Center (CRC), in which students enrolled in research capstone determine the gender of CRC raptors using molecular biology techniques. Her other area of research is a course-embedded research project, the SEA-PHAGES program, which is the lab sequence for the classes Foundations of Cellular and Molecular Biology and Genetics. SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) is a two-semester, discovery-based undergraduate research course that begins with collecting local soil samples to isolate and characterize new viruses. This lab sequence progresses through a variety of microbiology techniques and eventually to complex genome annotation and bioinformatic analyses. Once these novel viral genomes have been fully characterized, they are published in GenBank (the national database for genetic sequences) with all students enrolled in Genetics included as authors.

Education

Ph.D., Microbiology and Immunology, Medical University of South Carolina
B.S., Biological Sciences, Presbyterian College