Jen Spindel received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota and her B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Colgate University. She held fellowships at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth (2019-2020) and the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University (2017-2018). She was previously a non-resident fellow with the Institute for Future Conflict at the US Air Force Academy (2024-2025).

Spindel’s work has been supported by the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation and the Global Racial and Social Inequality Lab at the University of New Hampshire. Her dissertation won the 2019 Kenneth Waltz Prize for Best Dissertation in International Security from the American Political Science Association.

She teaches courses on international and national security, technology and war, and research methods. In 2026, she won the College of Liberal Arts Teaching Excellence Award.

In addition to her research and teaching, Spindel is a Patient Research Advocate with Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where she supports clinical and research studies that advance the detection and treatment of breast cancer. She is committed to increasing awareness and treatment for inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and aggressive type of breast cancer that is still mis- and under-diagnosed.