Jennifer J. Brown completed a PhD in genetics from SUNY Stony Brook for her research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York with Nobel Prize laureate Barbara McClintock. Brown's postdoctoral research and first faculty positions were at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Brown's genetics, medical education and public health research works are published in leading scientific and professional journals. She serves as a mentor for people diagnosed with phenylketonuria (PKU) and their families at the US non-profit National PKU Alliance, and has two daughters diagnosed with PKU through newborn screening.