Bio
Jacqueline Jackson Arnold is an interdisciplinary behavioral researcher and educational policy professional whose work examines how culture, environment, and social institutions shape cognition and academic performance. Her academic background includes a PhD in Educational Policy with an emphasis in comparative cognition from Michigan State University, an MA in Anthropology, an MS in Biology, and a BA in Psychology. She pairs her broad-reaching humanitarian work with mixed-method studies on leading educational systems in Scandinavia and East Asia. With deep ethnographic experience, she has worked closely with a wide array of global populations, from those in major cities to remote hunter-gatherer societies. Her findings suggest that culture operates as an underlying mechanism informing both cognitive socialization and instructional methods and mediates related learning outcomes.
Building on prior work in the cognitive aspects of education, Arnold is currently pursuing clinical training in Neurodevelopmental and Neurodegenerative Disorders and is deeply invested in understanding the neuropsychiatric dimensions of cognitive deterioration and investigating how these presentations are experienced and present cross-culturally.
Arnold conducts research between The Kennedy Krieger Institutes Phelps Center for Cerebral Palsy, Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and The Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, investigating the cognitive, behavioral, and cultural impacts of stigma on biopsychosocial outcomes in adults with cerebral palsy.
Arnold is mentored by Jennifer Deal, PhD, Cochlear Center interim director, and Eric Chin, MD, director of research at the Phelps Center for Cerebral Palsy.