Jen received her Ph.D. (Immunology) at the University of Toronto in 1998. She went on to do a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and then joined Biogen Inc. as a Staff Scientist in 2000. After three years in industry, she returned to academia as an Assistant Professor (Immunology) at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 2015 she was promoted to full Professor and in 2020 she was awarded a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Tissue Specific Immunity.
Jen's basic research focuses on autoimmunity, particularly the disease Multiple Sclerosis. More recently she has been studying the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in patients with COVID-19. She has mentored over 30 undergraduate students, 10 MSc and 16 PhD graduate students as well as 14 Post-Doctoral Fellows and served as the Associate Chair, Graduate Studies from 2012-2020.