Maren Jensen (September 23, 1956, Glendale, California) is an American actress best known for portraying Athena in the 1970s television series Battlestar Galactica.

Maren Jensen was born in Glendale, California, on September 23, 1957, and has blue eyes and brown hair. The actress majored in theatre arts during three years at UCLA. She appeared in several college productions, but admits, "I did absolutely nothing professional, not even the California equivalent of off-off-off-Broadway". She did, however, begin a successful modeling career which included Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazine covers. When a mutual friend introduced her to agent Barbara Gale, she was surprised by the agent's obvious enthusiasm. She was even more surprised when Ms. Gale started sending her on calls that resulted in two network commercials and a guest shot on "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" (1977). But even more startling, she recalls, was being signed for a stellar role in "Battlestar Galactica" (1978). "It's been an incredible learning experience", she says. "No matter what you think you're learned in school, when you face a camera -- a real camera -- for the first time, it's different. There's no way to teach what I've absorbed simply playing scenes with people like Lorne Greene and Ray Milland". Ms. Jensen comes from a "totally non-theatrical" family. Her father is a physician and her mother is a membership secretary with the Los Angeles Zoo. Ms. Jensen is single -- and plans to keep it that way for at least a while -- as her career moves rapidly forward. Her hobbies are "almost all musical", including singing and playing piano.