Jon Jacob, PhD ’26

Jonathan Jacob (he/him/his) is a doctoral student pursuing a joint degree in Social Policy and Sociology at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Prior to joining the Heller School, Jon worked as a high school educator in Los Angeles County. He holds an MA in social sciences from The University of Chicago and a BA in business from Brandeis University.

At the Leah Zallman Center, Jon is involved in mixed-methods research and evaluation projects, including one on a social return on investment (SROI) model for a refugee career pathways model.

The best part of this internship has been the degree of trust and autonomy granted to me. The LZC staff not only try their best to accommodate project work to fit my research interests, but also trust that I will produce a quality end product. As an intern, I felt like my thoughts and inputs were valued by team members.

Jon’s research interests include labor, social inequality, and culture. His current research examines the inverse relationship between the usefulness of certain jobs and their pay in capitalist societies and focuses on developing a metric to assess the social value of work.