ECR Spotlight – Jess MacPherson

ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Jess MacPherson is an author on ‘ Absence of a functional gut microbiome impairs host amino acid metabolism in the Pacific spiny dogfish (Squalus suckleyi)’, published in JEB. Jess conducted the research described in this article while an undergraduate student in Dr Gary Anderson's lab at University of Manitoba, Canada. She is now a PhD candidate in the lab of Dr Carol Bucking at York University, Canada, investigating the role of host-associated microbiomes in the physiology of fish and invertebrates.