Jennifer M. Blain Christen is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University. She completed her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2007 with an NSF graduate research fellowship. She completed her post-doctoral work in the Department of Immunogenetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her post-doctoral studies focused on microfluidics for sequence-based typing to match organ donors and recipients. She joined the faculty in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University in 2008.
She currently leads the BioElectrical Systems and Technology group focused on deployable devices at ASU with active research in implantable flexible neuro and cardiac devices and molecular diagnostics. Her implantable research investigates valves, multimodal sensing, neural (central and peripheral) recording and stimulation for treatment of hydrocephalus, epilepsy, and rehabilitation. She is also investigating battery-free implantable devices for both neuro and cardiac applications. Her molecular diagnostics work ranges from wearable to point of care/need devices. She has ongoing research with molecular targets including infectious disease (COVID-19, HPV, dengue, poxviruses, WNV), stress biomarkers, and controlled substances (e.g. opioids). She has experience with nucleic acid and serological detection. She has experience with a variety of detection mechanisms, microfluidics techniques, and microelectronics.
Dr. Blain Christen focuses on translational work which led her to pursue entrepreneurship. Her efforts include selection for the NSF I-Corp program, Flinn Foundation Translational Bioscience awardee, Equalize fellow, and a Fulton Entrepreneurial Professor. She is the co-founder of FlexBioTech, a medical diagnostics startup focused on health equity. FlexBioTech provides assays and instrumentation for point of need molecular diagnostics in low resource settings.
She has been actively involved in IEEE for over 20 years with over 10 years of leadership in the Circuit and Systems (CAS) Society including the Board of Governors, WiCAS (women in CAS) chair, BioCAS Technical Committee chair, MWSCAS general co-chair 2023, and TBioCAS associate editor. She is a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative taskforce and NSF ADVANCE fellow at ASU and the program chair for the Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC).