Jessica, a New York City native, worked as a public school teacher in brooklyn before pursuing photography. Since graduating for the International Center of Photography, Jessica has won numerous international awards, including the F Award for Concerned Photography, Magnum’s Inge Morath Award, the Juror’s Choice Award from The Santa Fe Center of Photography and The Marty Forscher Fellowship from Photo District News. For her video work she was awarded the Kodak Award for Best Cinematography at the Hampton's International Film Festival.
In the fall of 2007 her first book, The Ninth Floor, was published in Italy and the USA by Contrasto. She had her first solo exhibition at Forma, The International Center of Photography in Milan the same year and since has been exhibited at museums and galleries such as Foam, The Photography Museum of Amsterdam; Kunsthaus, Dresden; Foley Gallery, Chelsea; Locuslux Gallery, Belgium, and Aperture, New York. She became a full member of VII Photo in 2011.
Jessica's work has appeared publications such as Aperture, W, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times, The British Journal of Photography, Time, Grazia, and Photoicon and books such as A New American Photographic Dream, C International, American Photography 22 and This Day of Change.
Jessica began her video work by being commissioned for a video for Moby. Since then, she has filmed the award-winning feature film Without, and has worked for clients such as Doctors Without Borders and HBO.
Jessica is currently based in Brooklyn.