Jack received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2005 where he performed undergraduate research in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology with Dr. Charles L. Turnbough. Jack then performed graduate research with Dr. Jamie H. D. Cate at UC-Berkeley solving x-ray crystal structures of the E. coli ribosome to determine the structural mechanisms controlling mRNA and tRNA translocation during protein synthesis. Jack also elucidated the binding sites of several clinically important antibiotics on the E. coli ribosome and was awarded a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology in 2010.

Jack received postdoctoral training from Drs. Christine M. Dunham and Graeme L. Conn in the Department of Biochemistry at Emory University. At Emory, Jack studied how the ribosome avoids frameshift errors while reading the genetic code and also determined how a class of RNA methyltransferases recognize and methylate rRNA to confer resistance to aminoglycoside antibiotics.

In 2015, Jack became an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Alabama and in 2021 was promoted to Associate Professor. At UA, the Dunkle Research Group is studying the specificity mechanisms of erythromycin resistance rRNA methyltransferases a clinically important antibiotic resistance determinant, the structure and function of proteins in the Suf Fe-S biosynthesis pathway and the specificity and interference mechanisms of CRISPR-Cas10. The Dunkle Group has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.