Jennifer Grout

Google suggests she went to McGill: link (pdf).

More Googling turned up this longer version of the Arabs Got Talent video, where she says she's American and doesn't speak any Arabic. She doesn't say what her native language is, though.

I'm late in getting back to you, but thanks for your research, shilgia. Very interesting. I hope more details come out about her.

She is an American. My wife went to school with both her mother and father in Randolph, Vt.

Maybe she suffers from foreign accent syndrome.

Well this is an interesting development. I've seen some of her posts on Facebook and she doesn't write like a native speaker, either.

I wonder if foreign accent syndrome can affect writing.

Here's one person who says she was told by Jennifer herself that she does the accent on purpose to help Arabs to understand her. http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=14316

i was in shock when i finally went to my sister-in-laws house to watch Arabs got Talent. Since i'm an american married to an arab, the family was excited to show me this american who is singing in arabic and is winning. Well my first impression was when she spoke...she was not an american....well maybe she is an american my husband is now an american and so are alot of his arab family. So what are you JEENEEfer....American/?...be honest...you don't even say your name like an american does Jennifer. i am so ready to find out that secret! Not even a Canadian accent! The producers should know that this would be controversial...Wow.

Edited by: sadawin

This website links to this biography, which says she lives in Paris now:

Jennifer (sometimes called "Shahinaz") is a young American singer born in Boston. The daughter of two musicians, she started taking violin and piano lessons from an early age. But most of all she loved to sing, whether it was classical or pop or R&B. At the age of 13, she began taking private classical voice lessons, and later continued her studies at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, MA. In 2008 she entered McGill University in Montreal as a vocal performance major. About half way through her four-year program, Jennifer became enthralled with classical Arab/Egyptian music. She bought her first oud and started learning to play. Not too long after, she was singing muwashshahat while accompanying herself and learning popular songs of Oum Kalthoum. She has studied oud with both Aziz Daouni and Mohamed Masmoudi and Arab singing with Zied Benamor and Rima Khcheich.
She worked as a musician in a Syrian restaurant in Montreal for over a year, has played in Festival du Monde Arabe in Montreal twice, attended Simon Shaheen's Arab Music Retreat in summer 2011, performed in the chorus of the Michigan Arab Orchestra in 2012, and has had a number of other gigs mainly in Montreal but also in New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Now she lives in Paris, and hopes to continue both her Arabic language and music studies and dreams of one day performing this music on stage as the solo singer with a takht ensemble.

There was just a piece about her on NPR.