A love of puzzles leads to biomedical research
Posted by Kimber Crull
Biological sciences Ph.D. student Jennifer Harrell using fruit flies to study how sleep patterns affect health and aging. Photo by Blaine Falkena/Missouri S&T.
Jennifer Harrell says she has been interested in biomedicine since her elementary school days.
“I’ve always loved a puzzle, loved helping people and loved asking questions,” says Harrell, a Ph.D. student in biological sciences from Union, Missouri. “My current research combines all three of those things.”
For her Ph.D., she is researching sleep patterns in wildland fire dispatchers by applying insights from fruit fly studies. Harrell uses mathematical models to predict lifespan in the fruit fly based on their sleep characteristics. She also works to predict cognitive performance based on sleep patterns with data from wildland fire dispatchers.
Posted by Kimber Crull
