She was born in Pahiatua and educated at Hillcrest Primary and Tararua College in Pahiatua, and at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School (Wellington) and Horowhenua College in Levin. She went on to study at Victoria University of Wellington where she graduated with Master of Arts in Linguistics. Her main area of work is as a researcher/policy analyst. She has worked at the Māori Language Commission in Wellington and writes non-fiction articles.
Biographical sources
- Correspondence from Jenny Jacob on 9 Nov. 1992.
Non-fiction
- "A Grammatical Comparison of the Casual Speech of Māori and Pakeha Women in Levin." Te Reo 34 (1991): 53-70.
Theses
- "A Grammatical Comparison of the Spoken English of Māori and Pakeha Women in Levin." MA thesis. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria U. of Wellington, 1990.