Jennifer Grace Blanc, PhD, graduated in Autumn 2024 from the Human Genetics program and received the Program Award for Outstanding Performance in the General Field of Human Genetics. Her dissertation, Testing for Differences in Polygenic Scores in the Presence of Confounding, completed under the mentorship of Dr. Jeremy Berg, focused on improving the interpretability and reliability of polygenic risk scores, statistical tools used to predict genetic predispositions to complex traits and diseases.
Through rigorous statistical modeling, Jennifer developed methods to account for population stratification and other confounding factors that can bias comparisons of polygenic scores across groups. Her work contributes to the growing field of genetic epidemiology and has important implications for equitable and accurate applications of genomic data in medicine and research.
She is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago, where she continues to advance methodology at the intersection of genetics, statistics, and population health.