Biography
Jessica Jones-Smith, PhD, MPH, a professor in the Department of Health, Society, and Behavior, is a health policy researcher and nutrition epidemiologist focused on the social and structural determinants of nutrition inequities. Her research aims to identify policies that can help reduce these inequities and revolves around three main themes: evaluating the impact of nutrition policies on body mass index (BMI) and nutrition-related outcomes; assessing how social policies influence nutrition-related health outcomes; and examining the effect of economic and community resources, including food environments, on BMI.
Dr. Jones-Smith’s track record features impactful, rigorous, and collaborative work that combines econometric methods for policy impact evaluation with epidemiological methods for description and subject matter expertise in nutrition, nutrition inequities, and nutrition policy.
Research Interests
Dr. Jones-Smith’s research focuses on collaboratively leading large-scale impact evaluations of nutrition-related policies, utilizing natural experimental and quasi-experimental designs.
Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Science from Loyola University Chicago
- Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley
- PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Postdoctoral fellowship jointly at UC Berkeley and UCSF
