Janina Jeff

Dr. Janina M. Jeff is a population geneticist, bioinformatician, STEAM-activist, educator, motivational speaker, and podcaster, as well as the the first African American to graduate with a PhD in Human Genetics from Vanderbilt University and graduate of Spelman College (class of 2007). She is currently a Staff Bioinformatics Scientist at Illumina, where she develops pipelines for content annotation, selection, and design of population genome-wide content as well as selection of clinically annotated variants for Illumina’s genotyping array portfolio that enables healthy population screening.

In 2018, Dr. Jeff was selected as one of three winners (out of 18,000) from Spotify’s Sound-Up Bootcamp for her podcast, “In Those Genes”, an international award-winning podcast that uses genetics to decode the lost histories of African descended Americans through the lens of Black culture. “In Those Genes” has been recognized by the American Society of Human Genetics, NY Festivals, IndieWire, The New York Times, Third Coast Audio Festival, and The Ambies.

In 2020, Dr. Jeff was recently named as one of the top 100 Influential African Americans by The Root magazine as well as Top 40 Under 40 Alumna with Spelman College, The National Quality Minority Forum and The Network Journal. Her podcast has also received grant funding from Spotify, Illumina, 500 Women Scientist, and The Greater Good Science Foundation. Recently, Dr. Jeff is also the 2023 top award winner for the National Academies of Science Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Science Communications.

Her TEDx talk, “Afrofuturism Through the Power of the Genome,” similarly to her work, challenges the misuse of genetics information and empowers the Black community to learn the value that lies within their genomes work.