Jazmine Kenny

Jazmine is a PhD student in Public Health at the University of California, Merced. She earned her undergraduate degree at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where she double majored in Chemistry and Public Health. Kenny became passionate about community development and health prioritization while working for local non-profit organizations. As a Graduate Student Researcher working under her advisor Nancy Burke, she focuses on qualitative research. She is currently involved in an on-going project with a team at University of California, San Francisco on smoking cessation programs, analyzing the effectiveness of family intervention in reducing smoking rates. Using qualitative data software, she is determining the efficacy of the health education program in decreasing smoking rates. Her main research interest areas are in alleviating health disparities, women’s health, and health policy changes through community-based participatory research. Additionally, she is on the Student Health Advisory Committee as the graduate student representative, working toward making student health insurance more transparent to students, ensuring students have access to care, and are prioritizing their health while at UC Merced.