Jordan Knuth joined the Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology in January 2024. She joined the Allen Institute after two years as an academic research scientist focusing on nanopore long-read sequencing and genetics. Prior to research, she spent two years in industry as a microbiologist optimizing pipelines for pathogen detection and environmental safety. Jordan holds a M.Sc in Geology with a focus in Microbiology from Southern Illinois University (2018) where she studied biosignature detection in Martian analogs. Her thesis research has been published in Astrobiology and featured on the WeMartians podcast. Jordan received her B.Sc. from Eastern Illinois University in Geology with a minor in Biological Sciences in 2016. She hopes to use her diverse background to drive innovative solutions for today’s medical and biological challenges.