Originally from the UK, Prof. Dr. Jennifer Ann Harikrishna completed her Bachelor of Sciences degree in Microbiology at the University of Surrey, U.K. then was awarded a Whitbread Scholarship to pursue her doctoral thesis on the molecular genetics of industrial yeast at the Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield University, U.K. for which she was awarded Chancellors Gold Medal for the most outstanding graduate student of the year in 1990. She followed this with a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) before moving to Malaysia. She held positions at TropBio Research Sdn. Bhd., University Putra Malaysia and the Malaysia University of Science and Technology before returning to work at the University of Malaya in 2006.
Prof. Jenni is currently the Director of the Centre for Research in Biotechnology for Agriculture (CEBAR) at the University of Malaya and holds a joint appointment as a Professor in the Genetics Programme under the Faculty of Science at the University of Malaya. She also holds a current appointment as an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology at the University of Leicester, UK.
Prof. Jenni’s current research focus is on the molecular biology, biotechnology and biosafety of tropical plants including banana, medicinal ginger, orchid and oil palm. Dr Jenni became a full Professor at the University of Malaya in 2011 and currently manages CEBAR programmes as well as her own research grants as Principle Investigator, supervising several graduate students continuing to author scientific publications.