Jane was born and raised in Australia. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Science and then a Master of Environmental Studies. She worked for the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service for the following 15 years until she was bitten by the Antarctic bug. For several years Jane worked in remote field camps in Antarctica as a wildlife research scientist, specialising in the ecology of seabirds, including several petrel and penguin species. This coincided with the boom in expedition cruising and Antarctic tourism in the late 1990s.

For the last 10 years Jane has worked on expedition cruise vessels (including some Russian polar ice strengthened and icebreaker vessels) as a zodiac driver, lecturer and expedition leader in many remote corners of the world including South America, the Arctic and Antarctica, Europe, South-east Asia and the South Pacific. She also keeps her hand in the science pie as Voyage leader for the Australian Antarctic Division, being responsible for deploying support personnel, cargo and scientists to stations and field camps in Antarctica on the Australian research and re-supply icebreaker Aurora Australis. She is a keen skier and now calls the Rocky Mountains in Canada home.