diff --git a/bin/adam-pyspark b/bin/adam-pyspark
index 6026e74327..c2b9491b1c 100755
--- a/bin/adam-pyspark
+++ b/bin/adam-pyspark
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ fi
 
 # submit the job to Spark
 "$SPARK_SHELL" \
-  --properties-file "$ADAM_REPO"/bin/adam-spark-defaults.conf \
+  --conf spark.serializer=org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer \
+  --conf spark.kryo.registrator=org.bdgenomics.adam.serialization.ADAMKryoRegistrator \
+  --conf spark.kryoserializer.buffer.mb=4 \
+  --conf spark.kryo.referenceTracking=true \
   --jars "$ADAM_JARS" \
   "$@"
diff --git a/bin/adam-shell b/bin/adam-shell
index 206461eedc..f742776f0a 100755
--- a/bin/adam-shell
+++ b/bin/adam-shell
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ fi
 
 # submit the job to Spark
 "$SPARK_SHELL" \
-  --properties-file "$ADAM_REPO"/bin/adam-spark-defaults.conf \
+  --conf spark.serializer=org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer \
+  --conf spark.kryo.registrator=org.bdgenomics.adam.serialization.ADAMKryoRegistrator \
+  --conf spark.kryoserializer.buffer.mb=4 \
+  --conf spark.kryo.referenceTracking=true \
   --jars "$ADAM_JARS" \
   "$@"
diff --git a/bin/adam-spark-defaults.conf b/bin/adam-spark-defaults.conf
deleted file mode 100644
index 87e36a5037..0000000000
--- a/bin/adam-spark-defaults.conf
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,20 +0,0 @@
-# Licensed to Big Data Genomics (BDG) under one
-# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
-# distributed with this work for additional information
-# regarding copyright ownership.  The BDG licenses this file
-# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
-# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
-# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-# limitations under the License.
-
-spark.serializer               org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer
-spark.kryo.registrator         org.bdgenomics.adam.serialization.ADAMKryoRegistrator
-spark.kryoserializer.buffer.mb 4
-spark.kryo.referenceTracking   true
diff --git a/bin/adam-submit b/bin/adam-submit
index 1341209322..3712c95604 100755
--- a/bin/adam-submit
+++ b/bin/adam-submit
@@ -49,7 +49,10 @@ fi
 # submit the job to Spark
 "$SPARK_SUBMIT" \
   --class org.bdgenomics.adam.cli.ADAMMain \
-  --properties-file "$ADAM_REPO"/bin/adam-spark-defaults.conf \
+  --conf spark.serializer=org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer \
+  --conf spark.kryo.registrator=org.bdgenomics.adam.serialization.ADAMKryoRegistrator \
+  --conf spark.kryoserializer.buffer.mb=4 \
+  --conf spark.kryo.referenceTracking=true \
   --jars "$ADAM_JARS" \
   "$ADAM_CLI_JAR" \
   "$@"
diff --git a/scripts/jenkins-test b/scripts/jenkins-test
index 8e1c61615f..8f6992c258 100755
--- a/scripts/jenkins-test
+++ b/scripts/jenkins-test
@@ -27,13 +27,13 @@ export SPARK_DRIVER_MEMORY=8g
 pushd $ADAM_TMP_DIR
 
 if [[ $HADOOP_VERSION == "1.0.4" ]]; then
-    wget http://d3kbcqa49mib13.cloudfront.net/spark-1.0.1-bin-hadoop1.tgz
-    tar xzvf spark-1.0.1-bin-hadoop1.tgz
-    export SPARK_HOME="${ADAM_TMP_DIR}/spark-1.0.1-bin-hadoop1"
+    wget http://d3kbcqa49mib13.cloudfront.net/spark-1.1.0-bin-hadoop1.tgz
+    tar xzvf spark-1.1.0-bin-hadoop1.tgz
+    export SPARK_HOME="${ADAM_TMP_DIR}/spark-1.1.0-bin-hadoop1"
 else
-    wget http://d3kbcqa49mib13.cloudfront.net/spark-1.0.1-bin-hadoop2.tgz
-    tar xzvf spark-1.0.1-bin-hadoop2.tgz
-    export SPARK_HOME="${ADAM_TMP_DIR}/spark-1.0.1-bin-hadoop2"
+    wget http://d3kbcqa49mib13.cloudfront.net/spark-1.1.0-bin-hadoop2.3.tgz
+    tar xzvf spark-1.1.0-bin-hadoop2.3.tgz
+    export SPARK_HOME="${ADAM_TMP_DIR}/spark-1.1.0-bin-hadoop2.3"
 fi
 
 ADAM="./bin/adam-submit "