Dr. Jennifer Jennings joined the CA WRIISC to focus on post-deployment research on traumatic brain injury, neurodegenerative disease, and chronic pain as a fellow in 2016, and has served as clinical Director of the CA WRIISC since 2019. She was appointed as the Clinical Director of the Women’s Operational Military Exposure Network (WOMEN), designed to address deployment related exposure health concerns in Women Veterans, at its inception in 2023.

Dr. Jennings graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Human Biology. She has worked in Women’s Health at the Native American Women’s Health Resource Center on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota and with the Homeless Prenatal Program in San Francisco. She earned a MD at UTHSCSA (University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio) in her home state of Texas. She completed a her residency in Neurosurgery at SUNY Upstate and served as the Chief of Neurosurgery of the Syracuse VA and a Clinical Associate Professor at SUNY Upstate for two years, specializing in Spine surgery and Deep Brain Stimulation. Dr. Jennings subsequently worked as a minimally invasive spine surgeon in private practice before returning to serve the Veteran population. She has been seeing deployed Veterans for their toxic exposure concerns related to their general health in her time at the WRIISC, and welcomes the opportunity to extend this into translational research to help Veterans, focusing on conditions unique to Women Veterans.