Prof. Jackson is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and leader of the AI for Materials Group at UIUC's Beckman Institute. He obtained his B.A. in Physics from Wesleyan University in 2011, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 2016, working with Prof. Mark Ratner and Prof. Lin Chen. He was subsequently a Named Fellow and Assistant Scientist in the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, working with Prof. Juan de Pablo. His research group works on problems at the interface of soft materials, quantum mechanics, and machine learning, with specific interests in the development of coarse-grained electronic structure methods, conjugated materials theory, and sustainable polymer design.