Jennifer Waters, Ph.D.

Jennifer Waters, Ph.D.

Lecturer on Cell Biology (HMS)
Director of the Core for Imaging Technology & Education (CITE)
Director of the Cell Biology Microscopy Facility (CBMF)
LHRRB 113
Core for Imaging Technology & Education (CITE)

Jennifer Waters received her PhD in Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1998, where she used live quantitative fluorescence microscopy to study mitosis in Dr. Ted Salmon’s lab. After several years of teaching graduate-level optical microscopy courses at Wake Forest University, she joined HMS in 2001 to contribute to the establishment of the Nikon Imaging Center, a core facility dedicated to supporting imaging research. In 2024, reflecting an evolution in its mission and the culmination of a productive partnership with Nikon, the facility was renamed the Core for Imaging Technology & Education (CITE). This change underscores the core's expanded focus on advanced imaging technologies and educational outreach.

Jennifer and her team advise and train researchers on imaging experimental design and execution, and teach microscopy courses and workshops. She also organizes an annual two-week course on Quantitative Imaging at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (since 2011), and received a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Imaging Scientist award in 2019. She has authored multiple educational articles and reviews on quantitative microscopy, edited the book “Quantitative Imaging in Cell Biology” with Torsten Wittmann (UCSF) and creates microscopy educational videos for her YouTube channel “Microcourses”.

Harvard Medical School

Core for Imaging Technology & Education, LHRRB 113

240 Longwood Avenue

Boston, MA 02115

Education in microscopy: taking a closer look with Jennifer Waters.
Authors: Authors: Waters J.
Biotechniques
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Towards effective adoption of novel image analysis methods.
Authors: Authors: Lambert T, Waters J.
Nat Methods
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Rapid image deconvolution and multiview fusion for optical microscopy.
Authors: Authors: Guo M, Li Y, Su Y, Lambert T, Nogare DD, Moyle MW, Duncan LH, Ikegami R, Santella A, Rey-Suarez I, Green D, Beiriger A, Chen J, Vishwasrao H, Ganesan S, Prince V, Waters JC, Annunziata CM, Hafner M, Mohler WA, Chitnis AB, Upadhyaya A, Usdin TB, Bao Z, Colón-Ramos D, La Riviere P, Liu H, Wu Y, Shroff H.
Nat Biotechnol
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A Novel Paradigm for Expert Core Facility Staff Training.
Authors: Authors: Waters JC.
Trends Cell Biol
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Designing a rigorous microscopy experiment: Validating methods and avoiding bias.
Authors: Authors: Jost AP, Waters JC.
J Cell Biol
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FLIRT: fast local infrared thermogenetics for subcellular control of protein function.
Authors: Authors: Hirsch SM, Sundaramoorthy S, Davies T, Zhuravlev Y, Waters JC, Shirasu-Hiza M, Dumont J, Canman JC.
Nat Methods
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Direction of actin flow dictates integrin LFA-1 orientation during leukocyte migration.
Authors: Authors: Nordenfelt P, Moore TI, Mehta SB, Kalappurakkal JM, Swaminathan V, Koga N, Lambert TJ, Baker D, Waters JC, Oldenbourg R, Tani T, Mayor S, Waterman CM, Springer TA.
Nat Commun
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Phototoxicity in live fluorescence microscopy, and how to avoid it.
Authors: Authors: Icha J, Weber M, Waters JC, Norden C.
Bioessays
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Polo-like kinase-dependent phosphorylation of the synaptonemal complex protein SYP-4 regulates double-strand break formation through a negative feedback loop.
Authors: Authors: Nadarajan S, Lambert TJ, Altendorfer E, Gao J, Blower MD, Waters JC, Colaiácovo MP.
Elife
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Navigating challenges in the application of superresolution microscopy.
Authors: Authors: Lambert TJ, Waters JC.
J Cell Biol
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