This past summer and fall semester, members of my Eminence cohort and I founded Project PEER: Prison Education and Empowerment Resources. We seek to enrich educational opportunities available to incarcerated students by providing student-run tutoring programs, offering career and professional development workshops, and allocating academic materials. This semester, I acted as volunteer chair for PEER and participated in a learning community at the Ohio Reformatory for Women that focused on open dialogue about feminism and leadership. I’m looking forward to continuing this learning community next semester as well as running a book drive for prisons in the area.

I am part of the Kokiko-Cochran Lab at Ohio State studying the effects of stress on recovery after traumatic brain injury as well as Alzheimer’s Disease development. My duties in the lab include assisting with brain slicing and imaging, handling mice, and supporting graduate students and the PI with publications and posters.

The SOAR Initiative is a nonprofit that works to prevent overdoses and save lives through harm reduction. I am a part of the outreach and expansion team. I distribute fentanyl test strips at local syringe exchange sites and educate the public about our overdose surge / deadly batch text alert system. Additionally, I am expanding our services throughout Ohio, currently focusing on Southwest Ohio.

My name is Jessica Mitsch and I am a first-year neuroscience major and pharmaceutical sciences minor in the Class of 2024. I’m an Eminence Fellow, Stamps Scholar, and in the honors program here at the Ohio State University. My hometown is Cincinnati, Ohio where I attended Mount Notre Dame High School.

I look forward to continuing my passion for community service throughout college. I am currently a dog walker for Guiding Eyes for the Blind at OSU and part of Buckeyes Against Alzheimer’s.

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