Since her childhood, Jennifer has maintained a deep interest in Native American cultures and societies, as well as the prehistory and history of the North American continent in general. Her interests became focused following her first archaeological experience on San Clemente Island, one of the southern Channel Islands. For the past 12 years, her research has been centered on understanding the development and nature of political and socioeconomic complexity among coastal hunter-gatherer societies. The unique features, or opportunities and constraints, of coastal environments, and the concomitantly unique cultural trajectories that have emerged in such settings, form the core of her interests and concerns about human-environment interactions through time. Having completed her dissertation on prehistoric land and resource use on Santa Cruz Island, one of the northern Channel Islands, she has been teaching archaeology and prehistory courses at Pomona College since 2002. Jennifer lives in Claremont with her husband Dave. When not busy with archaeology, anthropology, or anything related to the Channel Islands, she enjoys hiking and backpacking, traveling, listening to and playing music, and reading poetry, among other interests. As a native Californian, she loves exploring the varied environments of California, especially the islands and adjacent coastline, deserts, and mountains.