Kaare Jensen
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Kaare Jensen is a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard working with Biological Physics, with a focus on advancing our fundamental understanding of vascular transport in plants. He started his career in science after graduating from high school, beginning his undergraduate studies in Physics and Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He built a breadth of research experience during his undergraduate years through semester and year-long experimental projects on turbulence decay and instabilities in rotating fluid flows. Kaare completed his BSc in Physics and Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen in 2005. He then spent two years at the Niels Bohr Institute, completing his MSc in Physics in 2007. During these two years, Kaare further expanded his research experience specializing in analyzing and experimenting with biological flows involving osmosis. This experience cemented his decision to pursue a career in research science, and helped to develop his interest in microfluidics. Starting in 2007, Kaare attended graduate school at the Technical University of Denmark where he was coadvised by Prof. Henrik Bruus and Prof. Tomas Bohr. His research focused on understanding basic principles of osmotic flows in microfluidic systems. In 2008, Kaare initiated collaboration with Prof. N. Michele Holbrook at Harvard, which sparked his research interest in plants. Applying tools from his bio-fluids background, Kaare expanded his research into areas of vascular transport in plants, performing bio-mimicking experiments to elucidate the transport mechanisms. Kaare also developed modeling frameworks to advance our understanding of the connection between structure and dynamics in plant vascular flows. Kaare completed his PhD in 2011, taking up at postdoctoral research position at the Technical University of Denmark. Here, he worked with industrial and academic partners to analyze flow in hollow fiber membranes used in desalination processes. In 2012, he moved to Harvard where he is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Holbrook lab. His current work focuses on building bio-mimicking microfluidic devices to better understand and potentially utilize vascular transport processes in plants for energy production. This work employs the tools of soft matter physics to attack fundamental problems in biology, and is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Weitz and Holbrook labs in the MRSEC Droplet Templated Materials group. Along with his research interests, Kaare is strongly committed to teaching and mentoring. He has lectured at the Technical University of Denmark and has supervised several undergraduate and master students for summer, semester and yearlong research projects.