Jennifer Keller

Jennifer Keller was a female Tau'ri who became a doctor and joined the Stargate program, serving as part of the Atlantis expedition. After the death of Carson Beckett she became the temporary head of medicine on Atlantis, but found it difficult to cope with the pressures of the job. Despite this she helped to heal the wounded after an attack by the Asurans. However, her status later seemed more permenant.

Early life
Keller was born and raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, USA. During childhood, her mother died and she is now all her father has left. During her educational years, she was always ahead of her class, having graduated from her high school at the age of 15 and earned a Bachelor's degree before she was 18. After university, she was training to become a doctor. During training, she made the mistake by confiding to her partner about her fear of snakes. Once, she was working on a cadavar where she found a live snake.

Sometime after she gained status as a medical professional, she gained military clearance to know of the Stargate program, where she later joined the Atlantis Expedition. She was chosen by Elizabeth Weir, due to her experience in the medical field.

2007
After Carson Beckett was killed in an explosion, Keller became his temporary replacement. Despite her position as acting head of medicine on Atlantis, Keller did not consider herself qualified to run such a large department and soon began to lose sleep over her new responsibilities. As such, she asked Weir if she could be replaced. Weir, however, informed Keller that she had been doing an adequate job and let her know that she was happy to put her life in Keller's hands. In addition to this, Keller's colleagues had spoken highly of her skills although Keller herself was doubtful of the accuracy of these claims. Though Keller continued to voice that she wished to be replaced, Weir simply informed her that the IOA were already in the process of choosing a new candidate but that they were known to take time on their decisions.



Shortly after this, Keller was forced to take control of the medical department on Atlantis following the Asurans attack with their Satellite weapon. As Atlantis dropped the shields temporarily to escape from Lantea to M12-578, the Asuran beam grazed the tower and Weir was seriously injured. Keller was responsible for trying to save her life. However, in the end she asked Rodney McKay to re-activate the Nanites in Weir's cells to save her life.

At one point, she and Teyla went to New Athos on a medical check-up, but instead find that the entire villiage was deserted and that the gate was guarded by Bolo Kai. She was relying on Teyla to get through the night until the rest of her team could rescue them. However, it wasn't easy as she admits that she didn't know anything about fighting. She and Teyla were later caught by Bolo Kai and were interrogated, but rescued by Nabel Golan, a man she treated where she found him stabbed, possibly by Bolo Kai. She eventually got over her fears and fought the weapon of Nabel, who was holding them at gunpoint. She shot Nabel in the leg after he refused to get out of her way. When she was finally rescued back to Atlantis, she was the first one to discover Teyla's pregnancy.

2008
During a lockdown of Atlantis, she was stuck in the infirmary with Ronon Dex and over the course of a few hours started to develop a romantic interest in him. The two almost kissed until all the doors opened again, ending the lockdown. She was trapped with McKay and Carter in an underground Genii mining facility. After several attempts to escape, the facility was going to collapse, until Keller, who was holding on for her life when she was about to drop hundreds of feet, found a light, swung to it and found a tunnel, a way out. She, Carter and McKay made it down and escaped before the facility fell several hundred feet underground.

Alternate realities

 * In an alternate reality, when Michael took over the Pegasus Galaxy, she tried to save all the affected worlds, who were ravaged by the upgraded Hoffan drug by attempting to lower the mortality rate, but failed. She was eventually forced to stop when the IOA wanted all the Atlantis resources to protect the city. She later resigned from the Atlantis Expedition, with McKay and spent three weeks back to Earth, by the Daedalus. In those three weeks, she began a relationship with McKay. However a year later, due to complications of the Hoffan drug, she had traces of it and died a few days later.