Jerry studied at Sussex University from 1987 to 1990. He graduated with a first-class BA (Hons) in English before studying for an MA at Essex University. Following a year living in Berlin, Jerry returned to the UK in 1992 to study for an AHRC-funded Ph.D. at QMUL under the supervision of Lisa Jardine. Completed in 1995, the thesis provided the basis for his first book Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World (Reaktion and Cornell, 1997). Following posts as a Research Fellow at Leeds University, and Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, Jerry returned to QMUL in 2002, where he is now Professor of Renaissance Studies in the School of English and Drama. He is also Director of the Queen Mary Graduate School in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Jerry's research interests focus on the intellectual, artistic and material exchange between east and west in early modern culture, reflected in his recent publications Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West (Reaktion and Cornell, 2000), co-authored with Lisa Jardine, and The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo (Oxford, 2002). In 2006 he published The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and his Art Collection (Pan Macmillan), based on research conducted during his 2002 Leverhulme Trust award, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Jonson Prize.