About Me


  • Route: Ozarks
  • Ride Year: 2018
  • Hometown: Overland Park, KS

About: Hey y'all! My name is Jackie and I hail from a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. My major is Neuroscience, but I am also in an Honors program called Polymathic Scholars that allows science majors with interdisciplinary interests to design their own field of study and write a Capstone thesis on it. My field is Food Culture in America, and my thesis is titled, "Optimizing SNAP and SNAP-Ed in Central Texas," which will focus on policy changes and nutrition education/behavior interventions to maximize the impact of what was formerly known as Food Stamps. After my ride, I intend to move abroad before eventually pursuing public health. Even though it's cheesy, I identify with Einstein when he said, "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." In my free time I cook/bake yummy things, follow the fashion world, engage in the Austin food scene, draw/paint/collage, scavenge for new music, practice yoga, and snuggle with my three beautiful cats: Yams, Pancake, and Felix.

Why I Ride

My grandmother, Glenna, died of a 15-year battle with breast cancer that eventually metastasized to her brain. Patrick, her husband, had parts of his bladder, lungs, and skin removed for various cancers, and underwent radiation for prostate cancer. He eventually passed in February 2018 of what is believed to be complications related to his bladder cancer, but lived an unbelievably full life that was only possible through the medical resources and treatments he received. A close friend from high school had ovarian cancer, and was forced to confront her mortality and fertility far too young. When I was about 8 years old, the Ouija board predicted I would die of breast cancer, and I believed it. I ride for these loved ones and innumerable others. I ride for the people who don't have a voice, who are underrepresented in cancer research, who can't afford proper treatment, who can't speak for themselves, and who are preoccupied fighting every minute of every day just to survive a little bit longer. I ride to broaden and diversify cancer research, emphasize prevention over a cure, promote community and public health-oriented approaches, and identify social and economic determinants that predict who is at risk for the disease before their first cancerous cell divides.