After earning a B.A. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley, Skyler Jackman performed research in nuclear physics at the 88" Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley Labs. He returned to the University of California at Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in Physics in 2009, and did his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. He joined the Vollum Institute as assistant scientist in 2017. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience in the School of Medicine at OHSU.

Synaptic transmission is continuously modulated by various forms of short-term plasticity (STP). These activity-dependent changes in synaptic strength are thought to be crucial to brain function, and hypothesized to play roles in sensory processing, spatial navigation, and working memory. Deficits in STP are associated with neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. However, until recently there was no way to manipulate STP, so our understanding of how STP affects circuit function is largely theoretical. Most forms of STP are driven by unknown presynaptic calcium sensors. Research in the Jackman lab is focused on identifying these calcium sensors and manipulating their expression in vivo in order to test how STP affects neural processing and animal behavior.