Jenny Montooth became the lead public affairs specialist for the Office of Communications (OC) in the National Human Genome Research Institute in January 2025. .
After joining the OC in 2017 as a social media specialist, she led NHGRI's social media strategy and content, establishing NHGRI as having one of the best, most engaging government presences across several platforms.
Under her guidance, NHGRI significantly increased its followers, bolstered its reputation as innovators, and branched out onto LinkedIn, Instagram and more. She has led outreach strategy for all recent historically significant announcements, such as the Telomere-to-Telomere full human genome sequence and the human pangenome reference, as well as socially-complex topics like the history of eugenics and our understanding of sex and gender. She’s an incredibly collaborative and creative teammate, developing new activities such as Way Cool Genomics, Ask Dr. Genome and live Q&As with guests across NIH and beyond.
Jenny still runs NHGRI’s social media accounts and helps to manage the Instagram and LinkedIn accounts for the NHGRI director. The accounts work to make NHGRI-funded genomics research accessible, interesting and fun for wider audiences. Through these efforts, Jenny has earned an NHGRI GREAT award for Diversity and Inclusion in Genomics Education and was nominated for a Golden Post Award for Best Government Twitter Presence.
