Jacobs works across the fields of computational art and design, human-computer interaction, and systems engineering. Her research lab investigates ways to support expressive computer-aided design, art, craft, and manufacturing by developing new computational tools, abstractions, and systems that integrate emerging forms of computational creation and digital fabrication with traditional materials, manual control, and non-linear design practices. More broadly, she examines how to enable art and design professionals to leverage their domain expertise to develop personal software tools.