Jennifer Maher

Jennifer Maher, assistant business manager, has a Bachelor of Science in Biology, with a Zoology focus from Western Illinois University. She started her career working at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL as a Raptor Trainer and performer in the Bird of Prey Show. She returned to the Midwest and started at the Genome Sequencing Center in June 1997, in the Quality Control Lab which included duties of plasmid DNA purification, completing both dye primer and dye terminator sequencing reactions, and participated in daily loading of 373, 377, and 3700 sequencing machines.

She worked her way up into a coordinator position which included supervision of up to 20 technicians, and weekly accountability of sub-clone ligations to MGI leadership, and coworkers. As sequencing technology improved, positions changed and she created custom paired oligo to confirm and close gaps in the human sequence. This position flowed into the Microbial Sequencing group where she completed many sterile technique triplicate sequences.

In 2010, Jen earned a position in purchasing and made the role her own. She started making purchase requisitions and establishing protocols, where there were none. This included working from a blank document to the current service desk system which is used today. Again, as operations changed so did the position, in January 2019 she became the Assistant Business Manager for MGI. She kept the duties overseeing purchasing and started working with other support groups including, Facilities and Instrumentation, Consumables Support, and working with contracts and agreements. Recently, she coordinated a 7 lab renovation and move seamlessly.