Dr. Trence is director of the Diabetes Care Center and a UW professor of Medicine. She is also the University of Washington Endocrine Fellowship program director.

Dr. Trence earned her bachelor's degree in both biochemistry and microbiology at the University of Minnesota, as well as, her M.D. degree. Her internship and residency in internal medicine was through Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. She returned to the University of Minnesota for her fellowship in endocrinology. She is board certified in both internal medicine and endocrinology, and is a fellow of the American College of Endocrinology.

She serves on the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) board of directors, chairing the AACE Continuing Education Committee, as well as, the Publications Committee She has been on the editorial boards of several journals, including Clinical Diabetes. She has had articles published in JCEM, JAMA, Diabetes Care and is a co-author of Optimizing Diabetes Care for the Practitioner.
She is director of Endocrine Days, a Pacific Northwest Continuing Medical Education event directed to clinical, as well as, academic clinicians in the Pacific Northwest, as well as a co-chair of AACE's Pacific Northwest Chapter. Her current interests include improving educational processes in diabetes self management, and clinical training of health care professionals.