Prof. Dr. Jennifer Ann Harikrishna is a Professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at the Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Prof. Jenni is a British citizen with permanent residence status in Malaysia. After completing her Bachelor of Sciences degree in Microbiology at the University of Surrey, U.K. she was awarded a Whitbread Scholarship to pursue her doctoral thesis on the molecular genetics of industrial yeast at the Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield University, U.K. She graduated in 1990 winning the Chancellors Gold Medal for the most outstanding graduate student of the year. Dr. Jenni then moved to the U.S.A. to take up a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Jenni moved to Malaysia in 1991 where she continued her post doctoral research at the University of Malaya, Department of Biology, before joining TropBio Research Sdn Bhd, a small private plant biotechnology company in 1996. In 2001 she joined the Institute of Bioscience at University Putra Malaysia (UPM) as an Associate Professor. Prior to re-joining the University of Malaya in 2006, Dr Jenni was an Associate Professor of Biotechnology at the Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST). Prof. Jenni became a full Professor at the University of Malaya in 2011 and holds joint positions as a member of the Faculty of Science and as the Director of the Centre for Research in Biotechnology for Agriculure (CEBAR), University of Malaya. Prof. Jenni also holds a current appointment as an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology at the University of Leicester, UK. Her current research focus is on functional genomics and biotechnology for tropical crop improvemnt.