Dr. Jean Hamilton grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Immediately after college, she began graduate school in the interdisciplinary Human Development doctoral program at the University of Chicago. For family reasons, however, she returned to Texas in 1973 and entered medical school with her husband. In 1977, she obtained an M.D. from University of Texas Medical School. During medical school, she also conducted research on "intrinsic motivation" and "flow" experiences, publishing with her University of Chicago graduate advisor (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).

Dr. Hamilton joined the faculty at Duke University in 1992 as a tenured, full professor in "Arts and Sciences" (with an initial joint appointment in psychology and women's studies, and a secondary appointment in psychiatry in the medical center). She is a licensed physician and still practices general adult and adolescent psychiatry part-time in local community mental health centers. Her present clinical focus is on the prevention of recurrent depressive episodes among women who are partial responders to traditional treatments for depression.

Broadly speaking, Dr. Hamilton has expertise in three main areas: (1) Psychiatry (e.g., mood disorders, clinical psychopharmacology); (2) Health Sciences (e.g., behavioral medicine, integrative medicine, women's health); and (3) Psychology (e.g., social psychology, gender, positive psychology). She has published more than 100 works and has served as an expert consultant to numerous agencies of the U.S. government, including the NIMH, NICH/HD, NIDA, FDA, and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. In 1994, she also received a "Distinguished Contributions to Women’s Health" award from Division 35 of the American Psychological Association.