Jacinta Smith
Public Health Service Officer, Center for Disease Control
University of Georgia BS ’00, MPH ‘04
Atlanta, GA
Jacinta, a native of Stone Mountain, knew from an early age that she had a certain passion. In fifth grade, she realized she “had a joy for science” and her eighth-grade science teacher “really saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.” Instead of regular summer camps, Jacinta spent her childhood summers at science camps like the Fernbank Scientific Tools and Techniques program and the Analytical Science Techniques program at Clark Atlanta.
She was encouraged by her parents to put education as one of her highest priorities. “I never questioned if I was going to go to college. It was a matter of where. Although my parents did not graduate from college, they always instilled upon me the importance of getting an education and going to get a four-year degree. I was the first person in my family to graduate with a four-year degree and that was only made possible because of HOPE.”
After finishing her bachelor’s and master’s at the University of Georgia, Jacinta was offered a fellowship at the Center for Disease Control in 2004, which evolved into a full-time position with the Federal government. Eventually, she was commissioned as a Public Health Officer in the United States Public Health Service. In addition to her role as a Public Health Officer, Jacinta also works in the Division of Select Agents and Toxins working to regulate laboratories that deal with “bioterrorism agents” such as anthrax, Ebola, and smallpox.
As one of 7,000 Public Health Officers reporting to the Surgeon General, Jacinta has had the opportunity to be in the field as the first response to health crises, “We have a role of being a deployable asset for the federal government for any sort of emergency response where there is a public or medical health need.”
In this role, Jacinta has been deployed six times, including two deployments to Liberia in during the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. “We were ringing the alarm bells to the U.S. Federal government, to President Obama, saying this is serious and if we don’t get assets down here to help, it’s going to jump shore very quickly. Sure, enough it did.” Her second deployment to Liberia in 2015 was in a recovery capacity, to help rebuild the public health system. “That’s when you really see the impact of what you do: when you see communities restored, when you see public trust restored, the resiliency of the community and the people, and you know that you were a really small, but important, part of making that possible and helping the country.”
“Life’s experiences will throw you a couple of curveballs, but you will never, ever expect where those curves, those detours will take you. I had no clue. If you had told me when I was 18, attending UGA as a freshman that I would be on the frontlines of an Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Could not have imagined that in my wildest dreams. But it happened. I will be forever grateful for those experiences. I will forever be grateful for the HOPE Scholarship for providing the opportunity for me to be in a career that I really love and that I am really passionate for. That is really rare…even if I didn’t have this career in science, I know that the HOPE Scholarship, just by the fact that it created an opportunity for me to attend college and not have to incur the financial barrier in itself, is truly a blessing. I know my story is not unique. I know that there are millions who also have that story.”
Jacinta lives in Atlanta and is currently one of the thousands of public health officials working on the front lines to fight the coronavirus epidemic