Jackie was formerly a chief researcher in the Economic and Development (EDP) unit of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) from 2013-2015, after which she moved to the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) as a post-doctoral research fellow in the UCT-led ESRC/DFID-funded Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa project (informally called Consuming Urban Poverty (CUP)),  focusing on urbanisation, poverty and inequality. She was a senior research consultant at a Cape Town based survey research and data science company (2018-2019) before joining the Western Cape Provincial Department of Human Settlements' Policy and Research Directorate. During the past decade, she has conducted research in a variety of fields and topics ranging from resilient cities to the green economy, the state of secondary cities in South Africa, and national urban planning and housing policy in South Africa and across the continent. Other areas of interest include local labour market dynamics, urban geography and socio-economic data analysis. She has participated in and presented work at multiple conferences and produced a steady stream of academic journal publications and book chapters, including compiling a special edition of Urban Forum as a guest editor. She has had several articles published in reputable international journals such as Urban Studies and Environment and Planning A.