Jacobson served as Deputy Executive Secretary at the
National Security Council at the
White House, where she facilitated the development of foreign policy initiatives for the
National Security Advisor and the
President. Jacobson is a career member of the
United States Foreign Service and served overseas in
Seoul,
South Korea,
Nassau, Bahamas, and
Moscow,
Russia. Her domestic assignments included the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the
Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and the Office of the
Under Secretary for Management. She also served as the Deputy Director of the State Department's
Foreign Service Institute. Jacobson served as
Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riga, Latvia, as the
U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan (August 2003-July 2006), and as the
United States Ambassador to Tajikistan from August 2006 until resigning from that position in August 2009 (replaced by Kenneth E. Gross Jr. as of 12 August 2009). From 2012 to 2015, Jacobson served as the
U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo. From 2015 to 2017, Jacobson served as the principal deputy assistant secretary of the
Bureau of International Organization Affairs. After the resignation of
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Bathsheba N. Crocker in January 2017, Jacobson served as Acting Assistant Secretary until her retirement in October 2017. first serving as the State Department's Director of the Afghanistan Task Force. From February 25, 2022 to September 25, 2023, she had served as Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim, at the Embassy in
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia. On January 25, 2024, President
Joe Biden nominated Jacobson to serve as the
United States ambassador to Iraq. Her nomination is pending before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On June 13, 2024, a hearing on her nomination was held before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On January 11, 2025 she has joined to
U.S. Embassy Dhaka as
Chargé d’affaires ad interim. ==Personal life==