Dr. Jennifer A. Tran graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with Honors as a Thomas M. Menino Scholar with her BA in Biology. As an undergraduate, she completed her thesis project on age-dependent neurodegeneration in the Drosophila brain, which led to a publication in the Journal of Neuroscience. She was inducted into Boston University Scarlet Key Society and earned the Recognition of Academic Excellence in Biology Award. She served as Chair of the Boston Asian American Students’ Intercollegiate Coalition. Prior to starting medical school, she studied the role of epithelial cell-derived exosomes in corneal wound healing at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass Eye and Ear under the mentorship of James Zieske, PhD.

Dr. Tran went on to earn her MD from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), where she was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Medical Society as well as the BUSM Shapiro Academy in Internal Medicine Honors Society. She worked on several research projects, including a study on the role of peripheral endothelial cell count in Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy under the mentorship of Ula Jurkunas, MD, at Mass Eye and Ear. Dr. Tran also studied the role of progranulin in retinal homeostasis and degeneration in the context of lysosomal storage disease under the mentorship of Li Gan, PhD at the University of California - San Francisco. Her work was funded by the AOA Carolyn L. Kuckein Student Research Fellowship and the American Academy of Neurology Medical Student Summer Research Scholarship. As a medical student, she chaired the BUSM AOA Carolyn Kuckein Student Research Award Committee and served as a leader of several groups including the Ophthalmology Interest Group and the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association: BUSM Chapter. She coordinated multiple community vision screenings at local health fairs with the Massachusetts Lions Club. Outside of medical school, she organized and moderated city-wide panels on topics in the Asian American community such as the model minority myth.

Dr. Tran’s work has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals such as Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Cornea, Scientific Reports, and Experimental Eye Research. She has presented her work at various conferences including ARVO, the Biennial Cornea Conference, and the American Medical Women’s Association.