Jessica Winter

Jessica O. Winter (born in 1976) is an American bioengineer. She is a professor of chemical, biomolecular, and biomedical engineering and an associate director of the MRSEC Center for Emergent Materials at the Ohio State University. Her research interests include nanoparticles for cancer imaging, diagnostics, and drug delivery; and cell migration in the brain tumor microenvironment. In 2021, she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Society, and Royal Society of Chemistry.

Early life and education Winter was raised in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex to academic parents; her father was a physicist while her mother was a chemist. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering at Northwestern University before entering the work force as a process engineer.

Career Upon completing her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship, Winter became an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University College of Engineering (OSU) where she began creating nanoparticle materials to detect cancer. She was soon encouraged by her OSU colleagues to expand her quantum dots to identify cancer cells in breast tissue samples. As a result of her work using nanoparticle materials in biomedical applications, Winter received the 2012 Inventor of the Year Award from TechColumbus.

The following academic year, Winter continued to develop Core Quantum Technologies Inc and received a four-year NSF grant to increase the production of nanoparticles for commercial use. She also established a research project titled QSTORM with Peter Kner at the University of Georgia to develop new visualization of the inner workings of cells. In November 2014, Winter was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her work developing magnetic quantum dots for cell and molecular separations.

In 2016, Winter was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for "outstanding contributions in biomolecular engineering, particularly the synthesis and development of magnetic quantum dots for cell imaging and separations."

In 2021, Winter received numerous international recognition and awards for her significant contributions to publishing in the chemical sciences. She was first elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry after having served on their Journal of Materials Chemistry B for several years. Following this, Winter was elected a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society as someone who "demonstrated exceptional achievements and experience in the field of biomedical engineering." Finally, Winter was appointed a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.