Jennifer Merrilees received her Master's Degree in Nursing from the University of California, San Francisco and is certified by the American Nurses Association in Gerontological Nursing.

She is a Clinical Nurse Specialist at the Memory and Aging Center and Associate Clinical Professor (volunteer series) for the UCSF School of Nursing. Nurse Merrilees is part of a multidisciplinary team focused on the evaluation and management of people with cognitive and behavioral symptoms. She is one of the primary nurses for the NIH-funded program project grant entitled Frontotemporal Dementia: Genes, Emotions and Imaging. Her work at the Memory and Aging Center focuses on behavioral symptoms in dementia and support and education for family caregivers. She directs a research project exploring the dementia caregiver experience. She was awarded a John A. Hartford pre-doctoral scholarship and is currently pursuing doctoral education at the UCSF School of Nursing with a focus on rest-activity disruption in dementia.