Dr. Jenny Molloy is a Group Leader at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB, Trieste, Italy), and an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Cambridge, where she co-chairs the Engineering Biology Interdisciplinary Research Center. Her independent research career began as a Shuttleworth Fellow in 2018 and her research groups now develop a range of open technologies enabling engineering biology for health and sustainability.
Jenny has a particular focus on the potential for local, distributed biomanufacturing of enzymes to overcome supply chain challenges. In 2020 she co-founded the Reagent Collaboration Network (reclone.org), collaborating with partners in Africa, Latin America, and other regions to steward and distribute over 400 open source DNA parts and microorganisms that are made available under legal tools like the Open Material Transfer Agreement, co-developed by Jenny and collaborators to advance open biomaterial sharing.
Jenny also co-organised the first Gathering for Open Science Hardware at CERN in 2016 which initiated a community that now convenes several hundred members via an online forum and regular events. She is a founding Board Member of the Open Science Hardware Foundation since 2020, a non-profit working with institutions, funders and policy makers to bring open science hardware into the mainstream as a key component of open science.
Amongst the special recognitions, the Special Recognition for their contribution to Advocacy and Awareness is given to the individuals ensuring open source is included in the policy-making agenda, raising the awareness of open source technologies and its community.