Jenny is originally from the finger lakes region of upstate New York. She obtained her BA in biology at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. After working in Dr. Susan McCouch's rice genetics program at Cornell University for several years, Jenny completed her Masters and PhD degrees at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC in Dr. Susana Milla-Lewis' turfgrass breeding & genetics program. She then joined Dr. Peter Balint-Kurti’s maize disease program at NCSU as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2017, she was hired as an assistant professor in the Dept.