Education
- MS, Orthodontics, UNC Adams School of Dentistry, 2019
- DMD, Harvard School of Dental Medicine through the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, 2016
- PhD, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences through the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, 2015
- BS, Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2008
- BS, Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2008
Areas of Expertise
- Craniofacial Development
- Craniofacial Anomalies
- Dentofacial Disharmonies
- Orthodontics
- Speech
- Animal Assisted Therapy
- Dental Anxiety
- Dental Fear
- Behavioral Interventions
- Oral Microbiome
- Oral Immune Response
Research Interests
- Orthodontics
- Speech Distortions in Jaw Surgery Patients
- Shifts in Oral Microbiome
- Technology Adoption
- Dental Anxiety and Animal Assisted Therapy
- Autophagy
- Childhood Obesity
- Growth and Development
- COVID-19
Research Summary
Dr. Jacox’s interest and research background in craniofacial development guided her towards orthodontics as a dental specialty. In orthodontics, she merges her love of clinical practice with substantial research, with each pursuit informing and inspiring the other. The primary focus of her research program has been on longitudinal clinical studies of speech distortions in jaw surgery patients. The other focus of her lab is on social science research in dentistry, including qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups) and quantitative approaches (survey development) investigating trends in orthodontics. As part of the COVID-19 research response, they are studying antiseptic mouthrinses for their ability to limit salivary viral infectivity. Finally, we are exploring applications of animal-assisted therapy for management of dental anxiety in pediatric dental populations.
Available to Mentor
Undergraduate/college student, graduate student, undergraduate DDS or DH student, postdoc and/or junior faculty member
Biosketch
Through Dr. Jacox’s graduate work in the Sive Lab at MIT’s Whitehead Institute, she discovered a novel craniofacial organizer, known as the Extreme Anterior Domain, which is required for mouth formation and migration of cranial neural crest in Xenopus. Her love of craniofacial development and patient care guided her to orthodontics.
During residency, she began a major clinical study on the influence of jaw disharmonies on speech with linguistics and speech pathology collaborators. This project has continued to grow, yielding exciting results on how jaw surgery for dentofacial disharmonies can improve speech disorders.
As an orthodontics faculty member at the Adams School of Dentistry, she established a lab and independent research program to support residents. Since then, her projects have continued to grow with external funding from the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Jacox and her mentees have presented at numerous national and international meetings, winning multiple awards. Jacox has over forty publications, with studies in the areas of craniofacial development, orthodontics, speech pathology, jaw disharmonies, animal assisted therapy, the oral microbiome, and the oral immune response to disease.