Jacob graduated from the University of Southern California in 2021, where he completed his BS and MS degrees in chemical engineering concurrently. He performed computational chemistry research with Professor Shaama Sharada, using density functional theory to investigate C-H activation in bio-inspired monometallic catalysts. After graduating, he worked as an engineer at SpaceX optimizing Falcon 9 production, before returning to school to graduate school at MIT, where he attends as a UCEM Sloan Fellow.

Jacob joined the group in January 2023 as a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering. His research focus is on using density functional theory and machine learning to understand catalyst behavior and generate predictions guiding molecular discovery.