Jessica Head

Jessica Head is an alumnus of McGill University and the Macdonald campus, completing a BSc in Biochemistry in 1997.  After graduating from McGill, Dr. Head worked in the pharmaceutical industry, gaining valuable laboratory experience and knowledge of the private sector environment.  She then enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Ottawa under the supervision of Dr. Sean Kennedy, graduating in 2006.  Her thesis examined the molecular basis underlying variation in responses to environmental contaminants among individuals and species of birds.  Following her graduate degree, Dr. Head completed a post-doc at Environment Canada’s National Wildlife Research Centre (NWRC) in Ottawa where she worked on a molecular method for ageing birds.   In 2008, Dr. Head joined the University of Michigan as a Research Investigator.  Her laboratory focused on aquatic ecotoxicology (birds and fish), and was located at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Dr. Head joined McGill’s Department of Natural Resource Sciences in August 2014, as an Assistant Professor.  Her laboratory focuses on genetic and epigenetic factors underlying responses to environmental contaminants in fish and birds.