Jess Jacobs, Ph.D.
Keystone Grant Awardee
Jessica T. Jacobs, PhD is a Senior Scientist and Education Assistant Professor in the Division of Physiology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. In the Nordman Lab, she investigates how brain circuits regulate social behavior and how stress alters their function. Her research combines targeted manipulations of neural pathways with detailed behavioral analysis to understand how experience shapes social interactions.
Dr. Jacobs teaches courses in neurobiology and serves as an instructor in the School of Medicine’s problem-based learning curriculum. Her commitment to teaching and mentorship spans her work in the classroom and the lab, helping students connect neuroscience research with broader questions about behavior and health.
She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Georgetown University, where she studied the neural mechanisms of social behavior in nonhuman primates with Ludise Malkova and Patrick Forcelli. Before her doctoral training, she was an IRTA fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health. Her background in psychology and philosophy, alongside research across species, informs her approach to both science and education.
2026
Mikaela L. Aholt, Jessica T. Jacobs, Magdalene P. Adjei, Nooshin Mojahed, Elana Qasem, Sandria W. Athul, Buffy Ellsworth, Jacob C. Nordman
Neuropsychopharmacology
The anterior BNST is required for novelty-driven social interaction
Jessica T. Jacobs, Mikaela L. Aholt, Taylor Lineberry, Magdalene P. Adjei, Elana Qasem, Sophia Aaflaq, Sandria W. Athul, Buffy S. Ellsworth, Jacob C. Nordman
The Journal of Neuroscience, 2026, pp. e1743252026
2025
Familiarity gates socially transmitted aggression via the medial amygdala
Magdalene P. Adjei, Elana Qasem, Sophia Aaflaq, Jessica T. Jacobs, Savannah Skinner, Fletcher Summa, Claudia Spotanski, Rylee Thompson, Mikaela L. Aholt, Taylor Lineberry, Jacob C. Nordman
Journal of Neuroscience, 2025
2024
Nooshin Mojahed, Magdalene Pine Adjei, Elana Qasem, Sophia Aaflaq, Jessica T. Jacobs, Temitope Adu, Ben Richardson, Jacob C. Nordman,
Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 18, 2024
2023
C. J. Bartsch, S. Aaflaq, J. T. Jacobs, M. Smith, F. Summa, S. Skinner, E. Qasem, R. Thompson, Z. Li, J. C. Nordman
Behavioral Neuroscience, 2023
Visualizing traumatic stress-induced structural plasticity in a medial amygdala pathway using mGRASP
Caitlyn J. Bartsch, Jessica T. Jacobs, Nooshin Mojahed, Elana Qasem, Molly Smith, Oliver Caldwell, Sophia Aaflaq, Jacob C. Nordman
Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, vol. 16, 2023