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= Jen Heemstra = Jen Heemstra is an American biological chemist. She currently works as an associate professor at Emory University, where she has extensively studied molecular recognition and self-assembly capabilities of nucleic acids. She has received an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and a Cottrell Scholar Award.

Early life and education
Heemstra received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry at University of California, Irvine, and later her doctorate from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2005. In high school, Dr. Heemstra was exploring a career in math, when she was encouraged by friends to join the Science Olympiad. Her coach sparked in her the joy of scientific discovery and showed her that science is more about exploration than memorizing facts. At the University of California, Irvine, Heemstra began studying chemistry to design, build, and explore molecules. She specifically developed a passion for the field of supramolecular chemistry, and pursued the synthesis and study of synthetic b-sheet mimics with James S. Nowick.

Career
The research Heemstra explored throughout the duration of her doctorate degree, which was supervised by Jeffery S. Moore, focused on Folding-Promoted Reactivity and Tunable Structure of Pyridine-Containing m-Phenylene Ethynylene Helical Cavitands. The lab that Heemstra worked in focused on exploring oligomers and polymers for applications in supramolecular and materials chemistry. Heemstra’s research specifically focused on the study of functionalized helical cavitands capable of binding to substrate molecules and accelerating reactions.

Heemstra decided to expand her knowledge to encompass biological chemistry and completed her postdoctoral training under the guidance of David Liu at Harvard University. There, she applied her passion for supramolecular chemistry to the field of nucleic acids by developing a new approach to templated nucleic acid replication.

In 2010, Heemstra joined the faculty of Department of Chemistry and the Center for Cell and Genome Science at University of Utah and moved to the Department of Chemistry at Emory University in 2017. She also writes a monthly advice column for Chemical & Engineering News and often shares leadership and mentoring advice on twitter @jenheemstra.

Current research
The Heemstra laboratory is focused on utilizing nucleic acid molecular recognition and assembly to develop new research tools and tackle ongoing challenges in biomedicine and environmental science. This work has yielded new technologies for drug sensing, single-cell sequencing of mRNAs, imaging of RNA and proteins, and small-molecule enantiopurity analysis.

The Heemstra laboratory also performs education research to investigate how instructors can better promote resilience in undergraduate STEM students and Heemstra is co-founder of Failure as a part of Learning, A Mindset Education Network (FLAMEnet), a nationwide education research network aimed at developing and disseminating educational interventions.

Awards
In 2011, Heemstra was awarded a Army Research Office Young Investigator Award.

In 2015, Heemstra received a Myriad Award of Research Excellence and a Cottrell Scholar Award.

In 2016, she received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award and the W.W. Epstein Outstanding Educator Award.

In 2018, Heemstra was named a Scialog Fellow.