Jennifer Jones-McMeans, PhD is the Director of Global Clinical Affairs for Abbott’s Vascular Business based in Santa Clara, California. Since joining Abbott as a clinical research scientist nearly 14 years ago, Jennifer has worked on gaining approval of numerous vascular devices, in the USA and around the world. She has led many clinical trials, including those for resorbable technologies designed to treat cardiovascular disease and peripheral arterial disease, the latter of which disproportionately affects, African American, Native American and Latino communities. Through her work, Jennifer has become one of the leading experts in clinical trial design strategy for vascular devices.

 

Jennifer’s journey began while working on her PhD at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her early research focused on evaluating the differences in genes and biomarkers between African Americans and Caucasians who were pre-hypertensive, when they were put on an exercise regimen.

 

As a post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Hypertension at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Jennifer had the opportunity to work on the Barbershop Hypertension Program founded by Dr. Ron Victor in Dallas; barbers received training to measure the blood pressure of their male customers and then connect those with high blood pressure with trusted contacts in the healthcare community.
 

Following the completion of her post-doctoral fellowship, she chose to take her experience and
knowledge to Abbott where she felt she could have a meaningful impact on the products and devices designed and developed to help millions of people around the world. Jennifer is taking a proactive approach to the design and implementation of clinical trials; in the spirit of continuous improvement, her goal is to make clinical trials more equitable, accessible and inclusive of diverse patient populations so that participants in clinical trials more accurately reflect those burdened with vascular diseases.
 

Jennifer is a member of the Board of Directors for A Sista’s Touch—an Oakland-based not-for-profit that focuses on empowering young Black women by celebrating Black excellence through the personal and professional inspirations of African American women across all generations in the community.

 

Jennifer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and six-year-old son.
 

Education:
PhD, Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD
Master of Science, California State University Eastbay, Hayward, CA
Bachelor of Art, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA