Rate My Professor Jessica Kissinger

Jessica Kissinger is the University Professor of Genetics and Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of Georgia, appointed University Professor in 2025 and Distinguished Research Professor in 2017. Her research focuses on parasite genomics and the biology of genome evolution in parasitic eukaryotes, particularly apicomplexan protist pathogens including Toxoplasma gondii, Cryptosporidium species, and Plasmodium. She investigates nuclear and organellar genome evolution, systems biology of host-pathogen interactions, and develops databases, ontologies, and tools for data mining and integration of omics data such as genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, and lipidome along with clinical and epidemiological metadata. Kissinger earned an A.B. cum laude from the University of Chicago in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Indiana University in 1995. Her postdoctoral training included an NSF/Sloan Post-doctoral Fellowship at the NIH/NIAID, a CNPq Post-doctoral Fellowship at CPqRR-FIOCRUZ in Brazil, and a position at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the University of Georgia in 2002 as an assistant professor in Genetics, advancing to associate professor in 2007, professor in 2012, and currently serves as Associate Chief Information Officer for Research. From 2011 to 2019, she directed the Institute of Bioinformatics, fostering interdisciplinary research in bioinformatics and computational biology.