Simone Jacot is a third-year nutritional science major with a minor in English literature, pursuing a pre-medical path with interests in pediatrics and global health. A first-generation college student from a rural community, she brings firsthand insight into the links between nutrition, poverty and chronic illness. Through University programs, she has traveled to Ecuador and Uganda to support University-led research teams examining global health challenges. She hopes to empower others to lead healthy, purposeful lives.
Raised in a remote northern California community, Simone Jacot experienced early how poverty, limited health care access and chronic illness converge in rural areas, where long distances to clinics and few preventive resources exacerbate health disparities.
As a high school intern with her county’s public health department, Jacot helped lead community wellness classes for families and children, while confronting the persistent barriers that limit healthy living in rural communities.
“The challenges of rural health care include poor health education, restricted access to healthy food and low participation in physical activity, all of which we were working to combat,” she said.
Those experiences clarified her academic focus on nutrition and the social determinants of health, shaping a commitment to return to remote communities with practical, preventative solutions.
University support opens doors to international research
Now a third-year premedical student, Jacot is majoring in nutritional science in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Science, with a minor in English literature. She is particularly interested in preventive medicine, global health and pediatrics, hoping to help shape lifelong health outcomes through early intervention.
As a first-generation college student, support mattered. The University’s Exploratory & Pre-Professional Advising Center played a key role, having her enroll in her first semester, a course designed to prepare students for competitive health profession programs.
That interest translated into action through research and leadership opportunities.
What does health look like beyond borders?
Jacot began seeking research and leadership opportunities, eventually earning acceptance into the Ecuador cohort of the Honors College’s Young Explorers’ Program of Nevada. Through this opportunity, Jacot joined an international research team led by Lora Richards, an associate professor in the Department of Biology, traveling deep into eastern Ecuador to communities accessible only by daylong canoe journeys. In these remote regions, clinics are scarce and patients with complex conditions often must travel hundreds of miles to receive care.
Funded by the National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR program, Jacot worked under Richard’s guidance to examine the connections between Indigenous agricultural burning practices and edible and medicinal plant life and how traditional land-use practices influence community health.
“After my time in Ecuador, I became fascinated by the intersection of medicine and culture, particularly in settings vastly different from my own,” Jacot said.
The experience revealed striking parallels to rural health care in the United States, including geographic isolation, limited infrastructure and a heightened reliance on prevention when treatment options are scarce.
From observation to action in Uganda
Back in Nevada, Jacot sought to understand how rural communities in other regions address challenges like those she observed at home. That search led her to Child Family Health International, a nonprofit focused on ethical, community-based global health education.
In summer 2025, she completed a four-week internship in Kabale, Uganda, drawn by the program’s emphasis on food insecurity and community nutrition. Working alongside a local midwife, Jacot examined how inconsistent access to protein affects prenatal outcomes, reinforcing her understanding of how nutrition directly informs clinical decision-making.
As part of her Global Health Practicum, a requirement of the Child Family Health International trainee program, Jacot collaborated with midwives to develop nutritional guidelines for pregnant and lactating women. One encounter with a young mother struggling to maintain adequate nutrition during breastfeeding underscored how early life care shapes long-term health outcomes, strengthening Jacot’s aspiration to pursue pediatrics.
A lesson without borders
Jacot’s experience was supported by the and the University’s Honors College International Travel Fund, which together covered the full cost of the program.
Her advice to other prehealth students is direct:
“Global health education is worth pursuing and entirely achievable,” Jacot said. “Understanding how disease, poverty, resiliency, and culture intersect will empower you to understand barriers to care and become a more adaptable and compassionate medical practitioner.”
