Jessica Dennis
Assistant Professor
Department of Medical Genetics
Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Jessica Dennis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at UBC and an Investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. A genetic epidemiologist by training, Jessica applies computational methods to emerging big data resources in population health. She aims to understand how genetic and epigenetic differences between people contribute to variation in disease susceptibility, response to treatment, and recovery. A primary goal of her research is to reduce the suffering associated with psychiatric and neurological disorders, which together account for more years lost to disability and death than either cancer or cardiovascular disease. She conducts studies in large population datasets, with a major interest in electronic health records and biobanks, and she works at the intersection of genetics, epidemiology, statistics, bioinformatics, and computer science.
Jessica completed postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, where she was a fellow in the interdisciplinary CIHR-STAGE program (Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategic Training for Advanced Genetic Epidemiology).
Research interests: epidemiology, genetics, bioinformatics, population health