As Director of the Water Center, Jen provides intellectual and programmatic leadership to our mission to foster collaborative research that informs the policy and management decisions affecting our nation’s Great Lakes and coastal estuarine waters. She networks with regional partners from the public, private, and non-governmental sectors helping identify and elevate their water-related priorities. Then she works with faculty and students to develop multi-sector, multidisciplinary teams that address the cross-sector water resource priorities our partners have identified. Jen also oversees staff implementing the National Estuarine Research Reserve System’s Science Collaborative program: including development of requests for proposals; design and conduct of technical/peer and practitioner review; and providing capacity and other support for project teams implementing collaborative science projects.

Jen has more than 20 years’ experience developing and implementing user-focused programs in the bi-national Great Lakes region. She has held positions at the Great Lakes Commission, the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor (GLIER), and as Assistant Director and Research Coordinator of Michigan Sea Grant. From 2008-14 Jen served as Executive Director of the bi-national Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS), a regional node of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System.

Jen currently serves on the Advisory Board for Great Lakes Blue Accounting and the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System's federal Advisory Committee.