Jennifer MacKinnon

Jennifer Ann Mackinnon (born September 16, 1973) is an American physical oceanographer who has studied small-scale dynamical processes in oceans for more than 20 years. These processes include internal waves and ocean mixing, turbulence, sub-mesoscale instabilities, and their complex interaction. She is a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) of the University of California, San Diego. In June 1999, she completed a Master of Science at the Department of Oceanography of the University of Washington. at Scripps Institution for Oceanography

In 2021, she demonstrated with coworkers in a publication in Nature Communications that pockets of warm water from the Pacific Ocean are accelerating the melting of sea ice

Awards and recognition

1991 – National Merit Finalist for "outstanding contributions to the understanding of internal mixing in the ocean, artfully synthesizing observations, theory, and numerical modeling." 2018 – UC San Diego Inclusive Excellence Award