Jake is the Library Director of the Hawkins Memorial Library. He is a recent graduate of the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). He completed his MA in English with an emphasis in book history and a Certificate in Literary Publishing. Jake was the first graduate student to receive the Languages & Literatures English Fellowship at UNI. As the Fellow, Jake worked as the Assistant Editor of the North American Review from August 2022 through December 2023 and worked as an Instructor teaching College Writing & Research for the Spring 2024 semester.

Jake and his husband are currently working on their MAs from the University of Iowa's School of Library and Information Science, working toward Academic, Archives, and Special Collections Librarianships. He lives in Waterloo with his husband and their three cats: Gaia, Orpheus, and Stella.