Gina Kirchweger joined the Institute in January 2015 and serves as the Chief Communications Officer and Chief of Staff. A scientist by training, and a communicator at heart, Gina has spent most of her career writing about science. Prior to joining the La Jolla Institute, she led science communication teams at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City and, most recently, at the Leibniz Institute for Age Research in Jena, Germany. A native of Austria, Gina received her master’s degree in Molecular Biology and her doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Vienna. After a short stint as a postdoctoral researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she completed the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and for several years honed her reporting skills working as a foreign science correspondent for European newspapers and magazines.