Janelle THOMPSON

Janelle Thompson is an Associate Professor at the Asian School of the Environment (ASE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and a Principal Investigator at the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE). Her research focuses on environmental microbiology, water quality, and extremophile biotechnology. She holds a PhD from MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and has held roles including Associate Director at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology and Assistant Professor at MIT.

Education:

• PhD (Joint Program in Biological Oceanography), MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2005)
• M.Sc. (Environmental Engineering and Science), Stanford University (1999)
• B.Sc. (Biological Sciences), Stanford University (1998)

Research Interests: Thompson’s work integrates molecular ecology, environmental genomics, and systems biology to address sustainable resource management. Current projects include wastewater epidemiology for disease surveillance, tropical marine health, and carbon sequestration impacts on microbial communities. She leads an interdisciplinary team at NTU/SCELSE.

Teaching: Developed an astrobiology course at NTU and previously taught environmental microbiology at MIT.

Grants & Collaborations: Leads an NRF IntraCREATE project on wastewater epidemiology with MIT, NUS, Duke-NUS, and NEA. Collaborates globally on wastewater-based disease monitoring and extremophile applications.

Labs & Teams: Heads the Environmental Microbiology Research Group at ASE/SCELSE, focusing on water quality and extremophile biotechnology.