Jessica Connley headshot

Jessica Connelly

Associate Professor of Psychology

As a teacher, my general strategy is to provide an open and nurturing environment to learn in. I encourage the students to ask questions and have been lucky to be able to create a dynamic, interactive classroom in each course I have taught. My scientific passion lies in the understanding of genes and how the unique differences in our genomes make us tick. I am a classically trained epigeneticist with a background in the human genome, brain sciences, and health and human disease. I teach about topics that span the genome and epigenome of many organisms including humans. Epigenetics is a topic that many have read about in the popular press and I have found that students are very eager to understand it, which makes my job easy. I teach to a very diverse crowd of students, even some who have never learned about genes. I think my students leave my classroom with a greater appreciation of who they are and how they work and this helps them piece their future world together. I will continue this work through the College Fellows Program using genes to engage the mind.