Combined DVM/PhD Program

Jessica Brown, DVM, Ph.D.

Pic of Jessica BrownJessica Brown

Faculty Co-Mentors: Dr. Mark Roberson & Dr. Paula Cohen
Current Position: Veterinarian, Raptor Center, University of Minnesota

Brief Biography
Jess grew up outside of Philadelphia, PA, and went to college at University of Maryland. She grew up with horses, but found that she enjoyed research and zoological medicine through various internships, including Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. She tracked zoo/wildlife during vet school, and spends her free time reading, running, playing with her cats and working with various wildlife species at the Wildlife Health Center. During vet school, she also discovered an interest in surgery, especially small animal orthopedics.

Education

PhD, Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Cornell University, 2017
DVM, Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University 2014
B.S. in Animal Science, University of Maryland, College Park, 2009
B.A. in History, University of Maryland, College Park, 2009

Research Interests
Jess’s research career has been somewhat varied. She started with looking at the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells, and progressed to cheetah reproductive endocrinology, and exotic animal nutrition. She is now working on the role of specific kinases in both the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and zygotic genome activation.

Publications & Presentations
P.A. Clark, J.L. Brown, S. Li, A.K. Woods, L. Han, J.L. Sones, R.L. Preston, T.L. Southard, R.L. Davisson, M.S. Roberson, “Distal-less 3 haploinsufficiency results in elevated placental oxidative stress and altered fetal growth kinetics in the mouse”, Placenta 33 (10): 830-838, October 2012.

Merial-NIH National Veterinary Scholars Symposium: "ERK deletion in gonadotropes creates female infertility via an anovulatory phenotype" Jessica Brown*, Jianjun Xie, Amy M. Navratil, Swapna Mohan, Krystal H. Allen, Stuart P. Bliss, and Mark S. Roberson (Poster)