She specialized in phytopathology (plant diseases), particularly the fungi responsible for "spot anthracnoses", including Sphaceloma and Elsinoe.
Leaving home to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Jenkins was influenced and encouraged by the prominent mycologists Herbert Hice Whetzel and Louis Melville Massey.
[1] Jenkins started working with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1912, and spent most of her career there.
Her early research involved the taxonomy and life histories of new of little-known fungi of economic importance.
Later, she studied fungi causing crop diseases, such as Sclerotinia on mulberry, Botryosphaeria on hemp, Elsinoe on lima beans, and pathogens of roses.