Rachel Jacobs is currently a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is interesting in using fMRI to study how interventions for adolescent depression work. She is currently examining whether using the skill of mindfulness can help interrupt ruminative tendencies among adolescents with a history of depression and whether this can help prevent depressive relapse. She is also learning about the intrinsic networks of the brain and how to measure these networks using resting state fMRI so that she can test what network patterns are associated with rumination and depression.
Jacobs received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University in 2009 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Translational Child Psychiatry at Columbia University. Her doctoral work focused on cognitive mediators of treatment outcome among adolescents with depression.
Yoga and meditation have been part of her personal, but not work, life until recently. She is thrilled to be able to study how to use mindfulness to help youth and how mindfulness might change the brain.
