In 2017, Jacob was accepted as a PhD student in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Politics at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. There he wrote his differentiation proposal for his dissertation research project, tentatively titled Highly Exceptional & Intensely Average: Life, Work, & Memory with American Session Musicians.

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This project is a culmination of his interests as a musician, a music fan, and an intellectually curious individual. The research utilises a life histories methodology to explore the experiences of legacy session musicians, players active for thirty or more years in cities like Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City, Memphis, and more. 

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Session musicians, along with technicians, engineers, stagehands, luthiers, and many more, represent a critically under-studied population that truly makes up the backbone of the music industry. While marquee artists and songwriters can rely on royalties, session players must constantly take on gigs or sessions in order to pay the bills.

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Jacob is seeking to sit down with musicians like Leland Sklar, Steve Gadd, Pino Palladino, Omar Hakim, Steve Lukather, and others to collect their life histories. This interview approach leaves the door wide open for musicians to speak about that which they find the most important about their personal and career histories.

Having arrived in Los Angeles, CA in October of 2018, Jacob is just getting the project off the ground. He is in the midst of building connections among the musical community in the city and is always on the lookout for other musicians or those connected to the music industry. He will be travelling to Nashville and NYC in 2019 to continue his research in these cities. 

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