Dr. Jacobs received her undergraduate training in human anatomy and physiology from University California, Berkeley, a master’s degree in physiology from University of California Davis, and PhD in Neuroscience from State University of New York, Albany. She was a faculty member at UC Berkeley for 15 years prior to taking her current position at Montana State University where she is a professor of neuroscience and the assistant chief information officer. In addition to her faculty role, she directs the Howard Hughes Undergraduate Biology Program; an effort to infuse mathematics and quantitative reasoning into the undergraduate biology curriculum, and directs academic technology initiatives for her campus. Dr. Jacobs maintains an active research program funded through the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health in three areas of research: neuroscience, informatics & data sharing and cyberinfrastructure. She is very active at the national level in science policy, serving both for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.