Jesselyn is a molecular microbiologist and doctoral candidate researching bacterial pathogens circulating at wildlife-human interfaces. Her doctoral work focuses on two primary subjects: the genomic and molecular characterization of Streptococcus pneumoniae circulating in human populations living near national parks in sub-Saharan Africa, and the development of low-cost, field-deployable molecular diagnostic tools for Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue, the etiological pathogen associated with yaws in sub-Saharan apes.

She began her undergraduate studies at the University of Manitoba, Canada, complementing her biology coursework with Earth history, physical anthropology, paleontology, and geology, before relocating to Greifswald, Germany. There, she discovered her passion for microbiology and One Health-oriented research. She graduated with a B.Sc. in Biology, majoring in molecular and microbial physiology, in November 2021. 

Jesselyn originally joined the HIOH in August 2021 as a student scientific assistant, setting up and taking inventory on lab equipment, conducting nucleic acid extractions and optimizing PCR protocols. She continued this role throughout her M.Sc. in Infection Biology and Immunology at the University of Greifswald, where she specialized in microbiome research, clinical immunology, molecular infection genetics, and metabolomics in infection research. During her studies, she also worked as a student assistant for the University of Greifswald, assisting in supervising biochemistry and microbiology practical courses and performing soil-based nucleic acid extractions. She completed her M.Sc. in 2025. Her master’s thesis focused on characterizing soil microbiome community shifts across a land-use gradient in the Ivory Coast, alongside validating diagnostic PCR assays to screen soil samples for Mycobacterium leprae and Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis (BCBVA).

Following a brief period as a technical assistant in the working group “Epidemiology and ecology of antimicrobial resistance” under the supervision of Prof Dr Katharina Schaufler, PhD, Jesselyn officially launched her PhD journey in November 2025 within the working group “Ecology and Emergence of Zoonotic Diseases” under Prof Dr Fabian Leendertz.