Jennifer Arvin Furlong was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia. At the age of 18 she joined the U.S. Marine Corps where she became the first woman Marine to serve as editor for the Quantico Sentry newspaper and to be awarded the Sergeant Major Dan Daly Award. She was also awarded Best Feature Writer by the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association. After the Corps, Furlong worked in the communication industry and mainly focused on community relations, writing, and editing. She earned a B.A and M.A. in Communication from George Mason University. She stumbled into her second career in higher education during her graduate program due to a chance teaching opportunity and has been torturing college students in human communication and public speaking ever since. She is currently studying for her Ph.D. in English Language and Applied Linguistics with the University of Birmingham – UK.