Jacob obtained his BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa where he worked at Agriculture and Agri-food Canada during his co-op assignments. It was with AAFC where Jacob pursued his graduate studies in Analytical Chemistry under Dr. Mark Sumarah and at The University of Western Ontario with Dr. Ken Yeung. His graduate study was focused on natural product discovery from fungal endophytes and agricultural pathogens. A significant focus of his work was on ginseng root rot and the virulence factors of the disease. He completed his graduate work in the fall of 2022 and joined the Wright lab as a postdoc later that year.
Jacob's research interests include discovering and characterizing Natural Products using analytical techniques such as HPLC, Mass Spectrometry, and NMR. He is especially interested in identifying novel antibiotics from fungal and bacterial sources.