Dr. Jessica Johnson-MacKinnon is an Aquatic Biologist with 10 years experience in the fields of aquatic animal health and diseases in aquaculture, as well as viral, bacterial, and microbial eukaryotic genomics.

Dr. Johnson-MacKinnon completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology at Dalhousie University and a Doctoral Degree with the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania.

She has worked in academic research developing skills in project management, literature review, laboratory methods, field work, sequencing, and large data set analysis along with high impact publishing and presentation. Her projects have included molecular validation of an ecologically important facultative parasite along with microscopic classification and environmental limits testing. She has worked on improving sediment DNA extraction methods for downstream microbial abundance estimates and sequencing.

Her research has also included aspects of human health with projects in typing and tracking antibiotic resistant microbe transmission for acute hospital acquired outbreaks. She has also worked with the Australian government on SARS-CoV-2 genomics – focusing on evolving sequencing methodology, cluster analysis, and vaccine escape markers, as well as work in zoonotic microorganism detection.