She was created by the producers, who wanted someone to fill in for Carson Beckett after Paul McGillion's departure from regular status in the series.

In hers, she dreams that Teyla Emmagan suffers severe abdominal pain and dies when an alien insect bursts out of her stomach.

After discovering the Athosians were missing, she helps Teyla through the night, and even overcomes some of her fears and drawbacks from her early years, after injuring Nabel, who is later revealed to have worked for Michael.

When she is unable to find a band-aid measure, she places him in stasis to give her and a team enough time to solve the problem.

[9] Two months later, she was able to wake up Beckett's clone from the stasis pod, after she found the solution from Michael's database from M2S-445.

[10] Later on, she finds a gene therapy from Michael's database that would eliminate the Wraith's dependence on feeding on humans.

[3] She later appears to have some romantic interest or maybe only fondness regarding McKay, who saves her life when trapped in an abandoned Genii mine with him and Carter.

Executive producer Martin Gero created the character of Jennifer Keller while writing "First Strike".

The producers decided to cast Jewel Staite for the role as Keller after they enjoyed working with her previously as Ellia in "Instinct".

However, because Paul Mullie thought there were already enough Canadian characters in the series (which include Rodney McKay and Chuck), she was turned into an American instead, after filming was completed, so the visual effects team wiped away the Canadian flag and replaced it with a CGI flag of the US.

[22] Staite's acting for the season five episode "Tracker" was also nominated for the "Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series" for the 2009 Leo Awards.