Jess was born in Chicago, Illinois but only suffered one midwestern winter before her family moved to Sarasota, Florida where she was raised. She attended Washington University in St. Louis where she graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in French and Biochemistry. She ventured north once more for her medical education at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She then completed her Pediatrics residency in the southern sunshine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where she is excited to pursue fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

Her academic interests include quality improvement, patient safety, and operations management. Her fellowship research initiatives include quality improvement projects, "Mini C-Arm Implementation to Improve Length of Stay for Patients with Fractures in a Pediatric ED" and "Boarding Pass to Successful Scripting: A QI Project Improving Medication Administration for Boarded Patients in a Pediatric ED."

In her spare time, Jess enjoys all things French and fawning over her Japanese Chin puppy, named Timothy. Her questionably useless talents include acing the reality TV category on trivia nights and beating personal records for marathons (on Netflix, that is). When asked for a fun fact, Jess rotates between three: her grandfather dated Marilyn Monroe, she was featured on a French radio show, and she was stung by a jellyfish during her first and last time sailing.