Jake joined the Centre for Social Research in Health (CSRH) following nearly a decade working in harm reduction services in Sydney’s Kings Cross.  This included outreach work with the Kirketon Road Centre (KRC) and a number of years as the Counselling Unit Manager of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC). Jake has a disciplinary background in social anthropology, philosophy, politics and cultural studies, graduating from The University of Sydney in 1991 with a BA (Hons) Class 1 in Social Anthropology and completing his PhD from Utrecht University, The Netherlands, in 2018. 

Jake's research primarily concerns people who inject drugs, including those affected by hepatitis C and/or incarceration. Combining qualitative methods, empirical data, and social theory — particularly Foucauldian and new materialist approaches — his work endeavours to make sense of the complexities of lived experience. Jake's work is strongly informed by a sense of the ethical and political responsibilities that lie at the heart of knowledge production in the field of illicit and injecting drug use.

Jake sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of Drug Policy and the Harm Reduction Journal. He works closely with government and non-government organisations engaged in advocacy, health promotion, and service provision for people who use inject drugs. Jake is secretary and board member of Harm Reduction Australia, a national organisation committed to reducing the health, social and economic harms potentially associated with drug use. Jake is also a longstanding community member of NUAA, the state's drug-user organisation.

Jake is currently working on FOpIT, the Feasibility of Opioid injectable Treatment, Australia's first-ever trial of injectable opioid treatment.