Dr. Jessica Smith Schwind is an epidemiologist and program evaluator. Dr. Schwind joined the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences at JPHCOPH in August 2017. She received a BS in Applied Biology from Georgia Tech, a MPH from New York Medical College and PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from University of California, Davis.  As a doctoral student, she worked on the USAID: Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT project which was a research endeavor aimed at forecasting the next pandemic along the human-animal-environment interface in 20 countries globally. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Southern University, she was also a faculty member at the Medical College of Georgia and Touro University, California. Her current research interests include disease surveillance, capacity building and risk communication for the prevention and/or early recognition of outbreaks with a focus on: best practices for operationalizing the ‘One Health’ approach, understanding and improving capacity building efforts and priorities for increasing health surveillance, and improving early warning systems for disease detection and response by bridging the gap between global digital databases and local health information. Dr. Schwind also conducts SoTL research on innovative online/onsite teaching and evaluation with a focus on immersive and service-learning practices. 

Disciplines: Environmental Health, Epidemiology, Global Health

Teaching Interests: Environmental Health, Epidemiology, and Global Health