Dr Jen Taylor

Jen Taylor is the Deputy Director - Science for CSIRO Agriculture and Food. CSIRO Agriculture and Food hosts world-class research expertise facing the agriculture and food industries. It delivers scientific advances and industry impact in areas of resilient food and fibre farming systems, future novel crops, high value protein industries, healthy foods, secure food systems, trusted supply chains and improved footprint for our agrifood industries.

Jen Taylor previously led the Systems research program in CSIRO Agriculture and Food. This program delivers innovative farming systems that improve agricultural productivity and resilience under economic and environmental variability. To do this, the program harnesses emerging digital and biophysical technologies to enhance farm and landscape decision making for profitability and natural resource sustainability. The Systems program involves more than 120 scientists working across a distributed national footprint including 8 sites and multiple research stations.

Dr Taylor has a scientific track record in crop genomics and data science. She has active research interests in the utilisation of data science methods across agriculture including the delivery of new technologies for crop genetic improvement, provenance of food and biosecurity.

Before taking up this role she was the leader for the Genomic Science for Crop Performance research group at CSIRO Agriculture and Food. This group has more than 40 scientists of diverse capabilities, working to explore and develop crop performance technologies such as hybrid vigour, RNAi, asexual seed formation and in-plant nitrogen fixation. The group hosts the crop data science team which develops and deploys genomic and computational science to projects across CSIRO. Dr Taylor continues to contribute to national and international research projects with agritech and philanthropic partners.

Jen completed honours in biochemistry at the University of Queensland and a PhD in medical genetics at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research studying candidate gene identification strategies in human disease. Jen held roles as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Statistics and then team leader for functional analysis at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, both at the University Oxford, UK. In this work, Jen undertook research in statistical methods for the analysis of large-scale molecular data and networks associated with the genetic regulation of genome function. Jen contributed to the development and delivery of the Masters of Bioinformatics programme at the University of Oxford. Jen returned to Australia late in 2008 to join CSIRO to develop research towards understanding crop and pathogen genomes of agricultural importance. Jen became a Research Stream leader in 2010 and a Group leader in 2014. Jen is the Deputy Director of the ANU:CSIRO Centre for Genomics, Metabolomics and Bioinformatics (Director, Prof. Eric Stone).

In 2014, Jen participated in the 12 week CSIRO Acceleration programme - LeanLaunchPad In 2016, Jen completed a 7 week global study tour with the Nuffield Farming Scholars and continues an active relationship with Nuffield Australia. In 2017, Jen completed a Graduate Diploma in Executive Management (UNSW). In 2018 Jen completed the Australian Company Directors Course.

To date, Jen has contributed to more than 90 peer-reviewed research articles (H-index 37).