Rate My Professor Janna Fierst

Janna Fierst is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University. She earned her BA in Biological Science from Pomona College, MS in Biology from California State University, Northridge in 2004, and PhD in Biological Science from Florida State University in 2010. Following her doctorate, she held a postdoctoral position at the University of Oregon's Institute of Ecology and Evolution from 2010 to 2014. Prior to joining FIU, she served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama, where she received promotion and tenure in 2021 and was awarded an NSF CAREER grant in 2020. At FIU, she was recognized as a Top Scholar in 2025 for Junior Faculty with Significant Grants in the Sciences category. Her research employs theoretical, computational, bioinformatic, and comparative genomic approaches to investigate genome evolution, evolutionary theory, and complex genetic systems. Key projects include modeling structural variant mutations, analyzing horizontal gene transfer in nematode worms influenced by reproductive mode, developing bioinformatic methods for genome decontamination, inferring biological networks underlying cold tolerance in bumblebees, and studying mutation dynamics across organisms.

Fierst's lab uses model systems such as Caenorhabditis nematodes and bumblebees to explore how life is organized, structured, and changes through computational models and analyses. She has secured major funding, including an NSF CAREER award (2020-2026) on reproductive mode and horizontal gene transfer in nematodes, an NIH R35 grant (2022-2027) on structural variants and evolution, and an NIH NIA collaborative grant (2024-2029) on aged host-virus interactions. Notable publications include 'Genome Size Changes by Duplication, Divergence, and Insertion in Caenorhabditis Worms' (Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2023), 'Decontaminating eukaryotic genome assemblies with machine learning' (BMC Bioinformatics, 2017), 'Slow Recovery from Inbreeding Depression Generated by the Complex Genetic Architecture of Segregating Deleterious Mutations' (Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2022), 'Identifying transgene insertions in Caenorhabditis elegans genomes with Oxford Nanopore sequencing' (PeerJ, 2024), and 'Dauer fate in a Caenorhabditis elegans Boolean network model' (PeerJ, 2023). Her work has garnered over 1,170 citations, contributing to advancements in evolutionary biology and computational genomics.