Jennifer Barton

Jennifer Kehlet Barton is an American biomedical engineer who is Director of the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona. Barton develops optical techniques for the detection and treatment of cancer.

Early life and education Barton earned her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She moved to the University of California, Irvine for her graduate studies. She then joined McDonnell Douglas, an aerospace engineering organization now known as Boeing. She eventually returned to academia, moving to the University of Texas at Austin to research biomedical engineering for a doctoral degree. Here Borton teaches multiple different engineering and science classes including optical sciences and electrical and computer engineering. She has investigated a variety of imaging techniques for diagnosing and treating cancer, including optical coherence tomography and fluorescence spectroscopy. Barton developed miniature, integrated endoscopes that combine both imaging modalities, with a particular focus on identifying the biomarkers that underpin ovarian cancer. At the time, screening for ovarian cancer included pelvic ultrasounds and blood tests for CA-125, but neither of these techniques improve the outcomes for people with ovarian cancer. Jennifer has more than 90 peer-reviewed research journal papers.

From 2009 to 2012 Barton was an assistant director for BIO5 and in 2015, Barton was named interim director of the University of Arizona BIO5 Institute. The institute welcomes scientists from a variety of disciplines, including agriculture and pharmacy.

Awards and honors 1997: SPIE D. J. Lovell Scholarship 2008: Elected Fellow of SPIE 2011: Elected Da Vinci Fellow of the University of Arizona 2012: AZBio Michael A. Cusanovich Biosciences Educator of the Year Award 2016: SPIE President's Award

Selected publications