Sex, Genes and Chromosomes

Jennifer A. Marshall Graves is Distinguished Professor and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Jenny has spent her working life comparing weird animal genomes to discover how sex works and how it evolved. She was a pioneer of comparative genomics and of epigenetics, and was involved in discovering genes important for sex in humans as well as other mammals and reptiles. She has written hundreds of science articles and won many awards, including Australia’s top science prize: the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science (2017), and the L’Oreal-UNESCO International Prize for Women in Science (2006). Jenny is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and an International Member of the US National Academy of Science. She writes popular science articles for a combined readership of 6 million and recently wrote and performed in an oratorio that celebrates the beautiful science illuminating the Origins of the Universe, of Life, of Species, of Humanity.