Jennifer Bhatnagar

Jenny M. Bhatnagar, Affiliated Faculty with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Boston University. Prior to joining Boston University in 2014, she was a NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Minnesota and Stanford University. Dr. Bhatnagar is a microbial ecologist and biogeochemist, recognized for her work on understanding how human-induced global changes – such as warming, elevated atmospheric CO2, nutrient pollution, and urbanization – impact microbial activity in the terrestrial biosphere. Currently, her group is studying how plant-microbial networks cycle carbon and nutrients under the abiotic stressors of urbanization and forest fragmentation, the impacts of elevated CO2 on the activity of tree root symbiotic fungi, as well as how we can use soil microbiome engineering to recover ecosystem services (e.g. carbon storage) in burned residential urban-agroforests in California.

Dr. Bhatnagar is editor of the journal Rhizosphere and a member of the Committee of Scientists at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. She has faculty appointments in the Biogeoscience, URBAN, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, and Bioinformatics Ph.D. programs at BU, is affiliated with the Institute for Global Sustainability and the Biological Design Center, and is a founding member of the BU Microbiome Initiative. She is a recipient of the Charles Bullard Fellowship in Forest Research from Harvard University, a Peter Paul Career Development Professorship, the Scholar Award from P.E.O. International, the Murray F. Buell Award from the Ecological Society of America, the Early Career Award from the Soil Ecology Society, and the Patricia McLellan Leavitt Research Award for the promotion of women in science. She has published over 50 journal articles, as well as several book chapters and an edited book, and given 65 invited seminars and conference presentations. Dr. Bhatnagar’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and private organizations, and her students have secured over $1M in funding for their own research projects.

Dr. Bhatnagar is also committed to mentoring and diversifying the future STEM workforce by developing a more inclusive learning environment in academic science. She serves as faculty on eight different interdisciplinary graduate student training programs, seven undergraduate and high school science training programs, and leads key academic initiatives to elevate the participation of underrepresented students in STEM.

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers