Dr Jane Jacobs was awarded her PhD in human geography from University College London (1991), with a specialisation in cultural and urban geography. Across her career she has contributed to scholarship on colonial and postcolonial geographies, architecture and society, high-rise urbanism, and the politics of urban heritage.
She has published widely in these fields, including peer review papers, edited collections and single and co-authored books. Her key publications include: Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (1996 Routledge), Cities of Difference (1998 University of Minnesota Press), Uncanny Australia (1998 University of Melbourne Press), and Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture (2014 MIT Press). Most recently, she has been involved in a digital humanities project on Digital Historical Maps of Southeast Asia and a multi-disciplinary project Foundations for Home-Based Work in Singapore.
Dr Jacobs has extensive international experience in higher education, having taught and assumed senior administrative roles at The University of Melbourne (1991−2001), University of Edinburgh (2001−2011) and Yale-NUS College, Singapore (2012- 2023). She is a keen advocate of peer mentoring in academic contexts, having experienced first-hand the professional development value of receiving scaffolded feedback from colleagues.