Jennifer Morgan, PhD

University of Chicago, The Marine Biological Laboratory
Director of the Eugene Bell Center
Associate Scientist

Jennifer Morgan is an Associate Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole MA, where she also serves as the Director for The Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering.  Jennifer received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Duke University, where she worked with Dr. George Augustine on mechanisms of synaptic transmission with a focus on synaptic vesicle recycling.  She then carried out her postdoctoral studies on membrane trafficking in the Cell Biology Department at Yale University under the guidance of Dr. Pietro De Camilli.  In 2007, Morgan joined the Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Texas at Austin as an Assistant Professor where she expanded her research program to include spinal cord injury and regeneration mechanisms.  In 2012, Dr. Morgan was recruited to the MBL’s Bell Center to expand her research in regenerative biology.  She continues to study the mechanisms of synaptic transmission under both normal conditions and disease states, with a particular interest in how neurotransmission is affected by Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.  Dr. Morgan was a recipient of the Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience (2011) and a University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award (2012), and she was a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow in 2014. Dr. Morgan’s research program has been funded during the last 10 years by NIH/NINDS-NIA, Morton Cure Paralysis Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, NY State Spinal Cord Injury Research Board, and the Owens Family Foundation.