Cynthia Jeanne Jenks is an American physical chemist whose research has involved the surface properties of silver and of quasicrystals, observed through scanning tunneling microscopy and photoelectron spectroscopy.
[1] Jenks majored in chemical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating in 1986.
She went to Columbia University for graduate study in chemistry, where she earned a master's degree in 1988, and completed her doctorate in 1992.
In 2017 she moved from Ames to the Argonne National Laboratory as director of the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division,[2] and in 2021 she moved again to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as associate laboratory director for physical sciences.
[3] In 2011, Jenks was named as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for "major discoveries about surfaces of aluminum-rich quasicrystals, for sustained scientific outreach, and leadership in scientific planning within the Ames Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy".