Jillian Paull

Combining computational and experimental methodologies in her biological research, Jillian Paull believes that interdisciplinary work is the key to furthering scientific knowledge and crafting creative solutions to environmental and health issues.

Jillian is pursuing a PhD in quantitative biology at Harvard University, where she is most interested in studying interactions within the bacterial communities and applications of microbiology research to current environmental or biomedical issues.

She previously studied as a Fulbright scholar at the National Center of Biotechnology in Madrid. Conducting research in the lab of Victor de Lorenzo, Jillian worked to develop genome transfer capabilities in Pseudomonas Putida and introduced denitrification capabilities into the bacteria.

As an undergraduate, she conducted research under the dual mentorship of Danelle Devenport and Jared Toettcher. While in their labs, Jillian designed a drug screen to quantitatively describe regimes of Erk activity in a primary murine cell line (paper published March 2020 in Cell Systems). She graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 2018, with a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology and a minor in quantitative and computational biology.

Outside of the lab, Jillian enjoys learning languages, studying Jewish law, and spending quality time with friends and family. She also gives back to her community through her volunteer work for hunger and STEM advocacy groups.