Jessica was a graduate student working with Dr. Sutherland. She graduated from Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa) with a B.A. in Psychology and a concentration in neuroscience. During her time in the NBC lab, Jessica was interested in the neurobiological mechanisms of addiction and reward processing and her research focused on the chronic and acute effect of nicotine exposure on habenular and striatal function. She contributed to research projects investigating the antecedents and consequences of electronic cigarette use and the combined impact of HIV infection and chronic cannabis use on brain function.
After graduating in 2021, Jessica started a post-doc at UNC Chapel Hill in two labs:
Dr. Eva Telzer’s Developmental Social Neuroscience Lab and
Dr. Kristen Lindquist’s Carolina Affective Science Laboratory.