Jennifer Bussell, Ph.D.

Jennifer Bussell is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Axel in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. from the Rockefeller University and her A.B. from the University of Chicago. Prior to entering graduate school, Dr. Bussell worked for three years as a management consultant, conducting market research for biotechnology companies.

Dr. Bussell wants to understand how neural circuits encode biological drives such as sex, hunger and curiosity. Her graduate work in the laboratory of Dr. Leslie Vosshall focused on the neural circuitry of sexual behavior. Using the more simple brain of the fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model system, she studied the social interactions flies use in deciding whether to mate and discovered a group of neurons that controls female mating receptivity.