Lena Jäger's research interests lie at the intersection of linguistics, computational cognitive science and machine learning. She investigate cognitive mechanisms that underlie human language processing through different approaches such as experimental psycholinguistics, computational modelling as well as NLP and machine learning methods (e.g. deep learning).

In her current work, she develops of machine learning methods for the analysis of eyetracking data in order to get insights about cognitive processes reflected in an individual's eye movement behavior.

Lena Jäger completed an MA in Chinese Language and Culture (Sinology) at the Universtiy of Freiburg i.Br. and the Tongji-University Shanghai, the Beijing Language and Culture University and the Université Paris 7 Denis-Diderot. Subsequently she completed an MSc in Experimental and Clinical Linguistics at the University of Potsdam where she continued with a PhD in Cognitive Science. In her dissertation, she computationally and experimentally investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying human language processing from a cross-linguistic perspective. For the experimental work, she completed research stays in Beijing, Dalian and Taipeh.  After her PhD, during which she had also completed a BSc in Computer Science, she first worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the CRC Limits of Variability of Language at the Department of Linguistics and subsequently in the Machine Learning Research Group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Potsdam. In 2020 she was granted a Machine Learning Junior Research Group at the University of Potsdam by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In July 2020 she joined the Department of Computational Linguistics at UZH.