Jan Duursema's first published comics work appeared in Heavy Metal vol. 3 #3 (July 1979). She drew several stories for DC Comics' Sgt. Rock title beginning in 1980. With writer Paul Kupperberg, she co-created the Arion character in The Warlord #55 (March 1982) and the Arion, Lord of Atlantis series was launched in November 1982. Duursema was one of the artists of Wonder Woman #300 (Feb. 1983). She provided artwork to the Star Ace role-playing game from Pacesetter Ltd. Her first work for Marvel Comics, as well as her first work on the Star Wars franchise, appeared in Star Wars #92 (Feb. 1985). Back at DC, she was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1986 and drew the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons comic book series for three years. She briefly worked with John Ostrander on the Hawkworld series in 1992 and again the following year when the title was cancelled and relaunched as Hawkman.
Her association with Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars franchise began with Star Wars: Chewbacca #2 (Feb. 2000). She has since drawn several Star Wars series for Dark Horse including the Star Wars: Darth Maul mini-series in 2000 and the comics adaptation of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones in 2002. Duursema and Ostrander collaborated on the Star Wars: Legacy series which was introduced with a #0 issue and ran for 50 issues from June 2006 to August 2010.They launched the Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi series in 2012.
Duursema was the basis for the character Ur-Sema Du.