Jessica Wright joined the foundation in 2010. Wright currently works as a genetic scientist for SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research), where she manages the return of genetic results to participants and contributes to the project’s genomics research and analysis.

Prior to this role, Wright served as research editor and then senior news writer for the foundation’s autism news magazine, Spectrum. In this role, Wright wrote award-winning articles on autism research, with a focus on autism genetics, autism prevalence and adults in autism.

Wright earned her Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University, studying the biochemistry of nuclear transport. Her postdoctoral work at Rockefeller University, in the laboratory of George Cross, used high-throughput genomics methods to study gene expression in Trypanosoma brucei, a parasite that causes African sleeping sickness.