'''Jeri Lynn Ryan''' (born February 22, 1968) is an American actress best known for playing the Borg Seven of Nine on ''
Star Trek: Voyager''.
Childhood
Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman in 1968 in Munich, Germany to American parents; she has one older brother, Mark. Her father was in the United States Army and she grew up on military bases in Kansas, Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia, and Texas. When Ryan was eleven, the family settled in Paducah, Kentucky. After Ryan graduated from high school in 1986 (as a National Merit Scholar), she attended Northwestern University, where she was a member of the Alpha Phi fraternity. In 1989, Ryan became Miss Illinois and was a preliminary swimsuit winner at the Miss America Pageant. Jeri finished as the third runner-up to Miss America 1990, Debbye Turner. Ryan graduated from Northwestern in 1990 with a BA in Theatre. She stands 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) in height.
Career
right|thumb|180px|Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine from the television show Star Trek: Voyager
Ryan was hired as an extra in ''Planes, Trains & Automobiles'' during the summer prior to her freshman year at Northwestern, but was cut out of the final version. After college, she pursued acting full-time in Los Angeles. She made her acting debut in ''Who's the Boss?'' and followed that with guest-starring roles in TV shows like ''Melrose Place'', ''Matlock,'' and ''The Sentinel'' as well as TV movies such as ''Co-Ed Call Girl''. Her big break came when she won a regular role as an extraterrestrial investigator named Juliet Stuart on the TV show ''Dark Skies.'' The show was cancelled after one season, but the role had drawn the attention of the science-fiction community.
In 1997, Ryan was cast to play Seven of Nine, a Borg drone freed from the collective on the science fiction series ''
Star Trek: Voyager''. The role drew her instant fame and her wardrobe made her a sex symbol among some science-fiction fans. It also drew criticism from some fans who felt that character was created to add sexuality to the show, and who felt that a disproportionate number of episodes focused on her character to the exclusion of others. However, her appearance also coincided with higher ratings and more positive critical reviews of ''Voyager'', which were partly attributed to better screenwriting and partly due to her character being both intrinsically interesting and well-acted. Seven of Nine appeared on seven TV Guide covers in the USA.
After ''Voyager'' ended in 2001, Ryan joined the cast of ''Boston Public'' in the role of Ronnie Cooke, a frustrated lawyer
