Jessica Applebaum

Jessica graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2026 with a Bachelors of Science in Biology and Psychology. At UMass, she served as a teaching assistant for Introductory Biology and Drugs and Behavior, a psychopharmacology course. She was also an undergraduate research assistant at the Moove and Snooze Lab studying the relationship between 24-hour behaviors, including sleep and physical activity, and health outcomes in young children. A graduate of the Commonwealth Honors College, Jessica completed an honors thesis focused on behavioral sleep interventions in preschool children with developmental disabilities. She also served as a research assistant at the Khalil Lab at Mass General Brigham, contributing to a review paper on hormone replacement therapy for cardiovascular disease in post-menopausal women.

Following graduation, Jessica joined the CTE Center as a Clinical Research Assistant, where she coordinates visits and administers neuropsychological evaluations for the HOPE Study and the Black Men’s Brain Health Study. Her interests include neurodivergence, sleep, neurodegenerative diseases, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and the identification of biomarkers to diagnose CTE during life.