Jan attended National Taiwan University where she earned her B.S. in physics in 1968. She then began her graduate studies with the intention of studying theoretical physics at Caltech. Two years later, in 1970, she was inspired by her thesis advisor, Max Delbrück (winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize), and Jerome Vinograd to change her field of study to biology. Switching fields involved Jan sitting for a seven-day, open-book, open-library exam in the field of biology after having passed the qualifying exams for physics graduate students and also a placement test in organism biology. Lily Jan's proposal and her subsequent thesis work was focused on structural studies of rhodopsin localization in mammalian photoreceptors and also in plasma membranes. Her co-mentors for her graduate studies were Jean Paul Revel and Max Delbrück. Upon joining the Delbrück group, Jan was a member of the membrane biology subgroup where she performed challenging experiments in black lipid bilayers in the sub-terranean sub-basement of the electrical engineering building. The Jans have shared that from this point forward Delbrück ensured separation of her graduate work from those of her spouse Yuh Nung Jan given his graduate studies with Delbrück were focused on the sensory responses of the fungus Phycomyces to light, among other stimuli.
