Jessica “Jessie” L. King, Ph.D., began her years-long career in public health when she served two years as a HealthCorps coordinator. She then began work in local tobacco control. Recognizing a lack of strategies to help end smoking in youth, Dr. King returned to UF in 2012, and focused her research on identifying and testing interventions to improve smoking cessation. She also continued working in tobacco control, first working at the local level in school-based health education and later the state level collecting and analyzing data to direct local policy efforts for grantees statewide.

After completing her doctoral studies, she sought out specialized training in tobacco communication with one of the FDA/NIH Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS). King’s training and research as a TCORS fellow has taught her how to best communicate tobacco product harm information to youth and young adults. Currently, she has several tobacco-related grants under review, and looks forward to continuing to conduct scientifically rigorous research within tobacco control.

[Profile added in 2019]

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