Jessica Martin

Jessica Martin is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology. Jessica’s main research interests include primate ecology and evolution, nutrition, and genetics/genomics. Her dissertation work will focus on how the environment shapes host-associated microbial communities in vervet monkeys. She is particularly interested in how the response of the gut microbiome to external factors such as diet might contribute to host health. To learn more about Martin’s research and publications, visit her webpage.

In Spring 2023, Jessica was awarded travel funds to conduct preliminary research and fecal analysis of wild vervet monkeys living in two locations in South Africa with fundamentally different diets. One location has natural foraging, while the other facilitates agricultural and human food foraging. She hopes that this information will provide greater insight into the health and well-being of primate populations. Learn more in our featured article.

In Spring 2025, Jessica received a CISS Summer mini-grant to support her work in gut microbial collection and analysis using Oxford Nanopore 16S rRNA sequencing and shotgun metagenomics. These data, alongside measures of gut inflammation and parasitic infection, will be integrated with behavioral observations to assess how anthropogenic diets influence vervet monkey health. Her work also contributes to local training and community engagement through hands-on instruction in field and lab techniques for university students, as well as the development of interactive microbiome-focused lessons for schoolchildren near the study sites.. Learn more in our featured article.