Dr. Prenni received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder followed by post-doctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. She has over 20 years of experience in biological mass spectrometry and served for over ten years at the Director of the Proteomics and Metabolomics Core Facility at Colorado State University (CSU). During this time, her group developed novel approaches in metabolomics for analytical methods and data analysis including the RAMClustR algorithm for metabolite clustering and annotation.
Presently, Dr. Prenni is a Professor in the Department of Horticulture at CSU where the overall theme of her research is the application of mass spectrometry to address important issues in food safety and quality. Current projects are focused on the use of mass spectrometry to (1) dissect complex genotype by environment (GxE) interactions, including the microbiome, in plant and animal systems (2) develop novel approaches using ambient ionization for characterization of food quality and authenticity (3) perform sensitive and rapid quantification of drug and chemical residues in food products (4) develop novel methods for metabolomics sample preparation, data acquisition, and informatics. Dr. Prenni has authored over 110 peer-reviewed publications and is an active member of the mass spectrometry community.