Jackie Kent is a junior Journalism major at The University of Arizona, with a minor in Art History. She loves living in the Tucson desert, which is so different but as beautiful and engaging as her home in Huntington Beach, California.

Also, Kent is a student media leader at The University of Arizona. As a sophomore, she worked as a reporter, fill-in anchor and production assistant for UATV 3, the University’s student-run television station. She earned her way to the station’s general manager position for the 2012-2013 school year.

This past summer, Kent enjoyed her time as the consumer affairs intern at KABC-TV in Los Angeles. She additionally shadowed the station’s health specialists and general news reporters, and experienced work and learned how to be effective in a top market newsroom. One of her favorite experiences was interviewing the 2012 Olympic men’s and women’s volleyball teams, and their coaches at Disneyland during the teams’ celebratory send-off to London.

Kent has interned at two Tucson news stations: KGUN-9, Tucson’s ABC affiliate, and Tucson News Now, Southern Arizona’s CBS and Fox stations. Through these internships, she learned and practiced many hands-on reporting skills, including setting up live shots independently.

Kent’s favorite news story was her in-depth coverage of all three camp sites of Occupy Tucson. She covered multiple sides of news, including the phenomenon of “hoarders” in our communities, for which Kent made a documentary prompted initially by a woman whose house caught fire from excessive clutter (pictured above, right). One of Kent’s current projects is a documentary on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (“ALS”), a non-curable neurodegenerative disease more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Kent sees a future of investigative reporting as an opportunity to have a wide spectrum of experiences and meet diverse people, and at the same time inform people about the world around them.