Jessica Oakes

Dr. Jessica Oakes

Jessica Oakes is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Following completion of her PhD in 2013 (UC San Diego), she continued research in aerosol medicine as a postdoc fellow at INRIA Paris, France and at UC Berkeley. Now, Jessica directs the Respiratory Innovation and Simulation Team (RESIST) and co-directs the Integrated Cardiovascular and Pulmonary (ICAP) team. Her research group focuses on combining experimental and numerical techniques to predict, quantify, and optimize aerosol dosimetry, and the corresponding structure/function response, in the lung. Specific projects in her lab focus on (1) predicting bronchodilator response in severe asthmatic subjects by coupling MRI-measured gas distributions with numerical simulations of the lung, (2) characterizing pharmacokinetics and comparative physiological changes in mouse models of cigarette smoke and e-cigarette aerosol exposure, and (3) determining efficiency of personal protective equipment (PPE) on preventing cardiopulmonary abnormalities resulting from prolonged wildland fire smoke exposure in firefighters. More details can be found here.

As an ISAM board member, Jessica has served on the ISAM congress scientific committee (2021: chair of environmental session, 2019: chair of best oral presentations session). In addition, Jessica has organized and distributed the ISAM newsletter to ISAM members. Previously, Jessica led the efforts in creating the Early Career Investigator (ESI) networking group and served as an ad-hoc member of the ISAM board from 2017-2019. As a re-elected board member, Jessica will continue to foster communication within the ISAM community and focus on integrating early stage career members into the society.