Jacques studied mathematics at the Sorbonne, earned a Master’s degree in astrophysics at the University of Lille and was recruited to the first French team that tracked early artificial satellites at Paris Observatory.

Moving to the US in 1962, he pursued his passion for science working on NASA projects at the University of Texas in Austin (notably, coding the first computer-based map of Mars) before joining Northwestern University where he completed his PhD in artificial intelligence. Jacques continued his computing and entrepreneurial career at Stanford University and SRI International as one of DARPA's Principal Investigators on the early Internet before managing a family of venture capital funds in Silicon Valley, specializing in information technology startups and early-stage medical and biotech investments.

Throughout his life, Jacques has maintained an interest in unidentified aerial phenomena, publishing his research in books that have been widely translated around the world. He was the real-life model for the character portrayed by François Truffaut in the film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.