Author. Activist. International media personality. Motivational speaker. Spokeswoman.

All are respectable professions on their own, but what happens when all of them can be found in one woman?

Jessica Weiner, a 1995 Penn State alumna, embodies all of these roles. But she hasn't forgotten her humble beginnings.

"I came from the Penn State world and I loved it," she said.

Weiner has written two bestselling books concerning body image and self-esteem, entitled A Very Hungry Girl and Life Doesn't Begin Five Pounds from Now.

She is currently working on the third book in the trilogy, which she called "a love story for the modern woman."

"It's about really finding the love and appreciation I was seeking within myself, from self-loathing to self-love," she said.

Weiner said she is also working on a teen advice book in connection with her online advice column that reaches about one million girls.

In keeping with her work with teenage girls, she is launching The Body Peace Project along with Seventeen Magazine. The series will debut in the December/January issue and will explore how girls can break the cycle of low self-esteem.

The project aims to get one million girls to sign a peace treaty with their bodies, Weiner said.
"They're no longer at war," she added.

Weiner was recently named the Global Ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem Fund.

Although many people have seen "the amazing ads with women in their underwear," Weiner said, her responsibilities will go beyond these commercials. As part of the Campaign for Real Beauty, she said she will be talking with real women and examining how the media affects their self-esteem.

Weiner said her college years had an impressive impact on her current career.

While at Penn State, she majored in theatre with minors in women's studies and classics. By studying the three different subjects, Weiner said she "was setting the stage of venturing into a hybrid career. I folded in all three worlds into the career that I have today as author and self-esteem expert."

Weiner said her women's studies education allowed her to "look at the world through the lens of women's issues."

Her intriguing career was not always clear.

"If you were to ask me when I was a junior or senior if this is the career that I would have, I wouldn't believe it," she said.

"I took everything I learned in my classes and got involved socially on campus with different groups," she said. "I can look back on those four years and see that so many of the seeds of my success were planted there."

However, not all lessons can be learned in the classroom, Weiner said. "I found a way to make money doing what I love," she said. "Nobody really taught me to be the entrepreneur that I am today. I was very driven to create a career that was out of the box. My career was not a step-by-step process."

Visit Weiner's personal Web site, www.jessicaweiner.com, for more information about her pursuit to raise awareness about body image and self-esteem.