Jess is a Postdoctoral Fellow in our lab. The focus of her research is to understand the physiology of pregnancy and alternative placental strategies. She is interested in how different evolutionary lineages of viviparity (or live birth) co-opt the same mechanisms to solve key challenges of pregnancy such as receptivity, gas exchange and immune response. She uses advanced methods of microscopy, genetics and molecular biology techniques to study the morphological and molecular changes that occur in reproductive tissues during pregnancy and has characterised and compared this across many different systems such as the marsupial fat tailed dunnart as well as eutherians such as cats and kangaroo rats. Jess also works on the physiology of male pregnancy characterising the morphological changes to the brood pouch of the male seahorse during pregnancy. She is also working on projects in avian wildlife conservation and understanding the impact of diet on the heritability of immune tolerance using a multi-omics approach.