School News and Awards 2024

Students

Forty-three Gillings School students were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the country’s oldest and most honored college honorary society. Phi Beta Kappa membership is open to undergraduates in college and professional degree programs who meet stringent eligibility requirements. Less than 1% of all college students qualify for acceptance.

First-year Master of Public Health (MPH) students Ethan Chupp, a student in applied epidemiology, and Shriti Pant, a student in maternal and child health, were selected for the 2023-24 Gillings School Public Health Communications Fellowship. They join Amma Agyemang-Duah and Rachel Morrow, second-year fellows who are both students in maternal and child health. The fellowship will equip students with the skills needed to communicate effectively and with empathy in a broad range of public health settings.

Gillings undergraduate student Rotimi Kukoyi appeared as the youngest contestant in the Jeopardy! quiz show’s Second Chance Tournament, more than five years after he competed in the Teen Tournament as a ninth-grader. The Morehead-Cain Scholar, an undergraduate student at the Gillings School majoring in health policy and management and minoring in biology and chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, plans to become a physician.

Sarah Sutter, Master of Public Health student in health behavior, and Haolin “Leo” Li, doctoral student in biostatistics, received the 2024 Gillings School Graduate Teaching Assistant (TA) Award.

Fawn Rhodes, a student in the MPH@UNC Leadership in Practice program, was honored with a WILMA Women to Watch Award in the public sector category for her work as the health and human services equity coordinator for New Hanover County’s Health and Human Services department.

Maternal and child health doctoral candidate Alexandria Coffey has been selected for the Presidential Management Fellows Program sponsored by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Ann Marie Weideman, doctoral student in biostatistics, has been awarded the 2023 Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship.

Tosan Omaghomi, Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) student, was named the 2024 recipient of the CAHME/Sachs Family Foundation in Honor of Michael A Sachs for Entrepreneurs in Healthcare Management.

Emily Ha, first-year MHA student, recently received the Association of University Programs in Health Administration Corris Boyd Scholarship.

Gillings students are seven of the 12 recipients of The Graduate School at UNC-Chapel Hill’s 2024 Impact Awards, recognizing graduate students in programs across disciplines for their powerful discoveries that contribute to a better future for the people of North Carolina:

• Eric Brown, doctoral candidate in environmental sciences and engineering,
• ‍Clara Busse, doctoral candidate in maternal and child health,
• ‍Mekhala Dissanayake, doctoral candidate in epidemiology,
• ‍Clara Eichler, doctoral candidate in environmental sciences and engineering,
• ‍Ximena Perez-Velazco, doctoral candidate in nutrition,
• ‍Allie Reimold, doctoral candidate in health behavior, and
• ‍Mollie Remch, doctoral candidate in epidemiology.

Faculty

Courtney Woods, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, was appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper to serve on the Governor’s Environmental Justice (EJ) Advisory Council. Woods will help address environmental injustices, specifically in marginalized communities in N.C.

Hongtu Zhu, PhD, professor in the Department of Biostatistics, is driving international conversations on the use of artificial intelligence by organizing a workshop on how statistics and AI have the potential to revolutionize health care. The workshop is part of the “AI Quorum on Statistics for the Future of AI,” a series of meetings at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in UAE aiming to spur pioneering AI research and promoting a broader understanding of AI’s potential as a force for social good.

Alison Stuebe, MD, professor and Distinguished Scholar in Infant and Young Child Feeding in the Department of Maternal and Child Health, was appointed as a committee member for the National Academies Committee on Understanding Breastfeeding Promotion, Initiation and Support Across the United States. Part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the committee will identify existing knowledge gaps, needed research, and data collection challenges to better understand the landscape of breastfeeding in order to address inequalities in breastfeeding rates.

Eight faculty members were nominated by their department chairs and received the inaugural Gillings Research Excellence Awards, which recognize one early- to mid-career faculty member from each department and program who has demonstrated excellence, innovation and impact in their research pursuits. The honorees are:

• ‍Zunaid Ahsan, PhD, assistant professor in the Public Health Leadership Program;
• ‍Leah Frerichs, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management;
• ‍Melissa Gilkey, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior;
• ‍Juan Hincapie-Castillo, PharmD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology;
• ‍Quefeng Li, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics;
• ‍Angela Parcesepe, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health;
• ‍Julia Rager, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering; and
• ‍Heather Wasser, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition.

The student-nominated Teaching Excellence and Innovation Awards honor Gillings faculty members who inspire students; enhance student learning through creative, engaging and innovative teaching methods; and/or support student success in the classroom and student growth as public health professionals. The 2024 award winners are:

• ‍Bahjat Qaqish, PhD, professor of biostatistics;
• ‍Amanda Northcross, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering;
• ‍Yesenia Merino, PhD, adjunct assistant professor of health policy and management;
• ‍Caroline Chandler, PhD, assistant professor of maternal and child health; and
• ‍Jan Lee Santos, MD, adjunct instructor, academic affairs.

Stephen Cole, PhD, professor of epidemiology, received the John E. Larsh Jr. Award for Mentorship, one of the School’s most prestigious awards, which recognizes the faculty member who best exemplifies the qualities of mentoring and commitment to students.

Joseph Ibrahim, PhD, Alumni Distinguished Professor of biostatistics, received the Edward G. McGavran Award for Excellence in Teaching, which recognizes career-long excellence in teaching by a faculty member at the Gillings School.

Joe Brown, PhD, PE, professor of environmental sciences and engineering, received one of the School’s most prestigious awards, the Bernard G. Greenberg Alumni Endowment Award for excellence in teaching, research and service.

Dorothy Cilenti, DrPH, professor of maternal and child health and director of the Maternal Health Learning and Innovation Center (MHLIC) and the National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center, and fellow experts at the MHLIC are co-authors on the third edition of the Practical Playbook: Working Together to Improve Maternal Health.

Noel Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health, was named to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The ACIP develops recommendations for U.S. immunizations, including ages when vaccines should be given, number of doses, time between doses, and precautions and contraindications.

Six faculty members received Gillings Innovation Lab awards to pursue research using generative artificial intelligence (gAI) that focuses on solving real-world problems over the next two years. Their research spans several topics, including cervical cancer screening in Malawi, decision-making around HIV treatment, modeling for brain-related disorders, behavior change for weight management, poor air quality and standards of primary care in marginalized populations around the world. The winners are:

• Jennifer S. Smith, PhD, professor in the Department of Epidemiology;
• ‍Lauren Hill, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior;
• ‍Hongtu Zu, PhD, professor in the Department of Biostatistics;
• ‍Brooke Nezami, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition;
• ‍William Vizuete, PhD, professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering; and
• ‍Sean Sylvia, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

Jason West, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering, was lead author of the chapter on air quality in the Fifth National Climate Assessment by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Published periodically as part of a congressional mandate, the assessment is a summary of the latest climate science, informed by experts in health, energy, environmental sciences and more. It’s also an evaluation of how climate change is affecting the U.S. economy and its populations.

Fifteen Gillings faculty were among the world’s top academic experts in Clarivate’s 2023 list of Highly Cited Researchers™:

• Ralph S. Baric, PhD, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of epidemiology;
• Noel T. Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health and professor of health behavior;
• Ariane Brown, research specialist in the Gillings School’s Department of Epidemiology;
• Stephen R. Cole, PhD, professor of epidemiology;
• Rachel Graham, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology;
• Lisa Gralinski, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology;
• Sarah Leist, PhD, research associate in epidemiology;
• David Martinez, PhD, a former Gillings School postdoctoral researcher in epidemiology and current assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine;
• Hans W. Paerl, PhD, professor of marine and environmental sciences and engineering and William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences;
• Barry M. Popkin, PhD, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of nutrition;
• Byron Powell, PhD, LCSW, adjunct associate professor of health policy and management at Gillings and associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis;
• Bryce Reeve, PhD, adjunct professor of health policy and management at Gillings and professor of population health sciences and pediatrics at the Duke University School of Medicine;
• Alexandra Schaefer, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology;
• Timothy Sheahan, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology; and
• Amy Sims, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology.

‍Aaron Salzberg, PhD, the Don and Jennifer Holzworth Distinguished Professor and director of the UNC Water Institute, was selected to serve on the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) Advisory Committee to the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). In this role, he will provide advice to the USGCRP — a federal program mandated by Congress to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society. This is in addition to his current role on the NAS’s Climate Security Roundtable, which provides guidance to the U.S. intelligence community on climate-related risks to U.S. National Security.

Amanda Holliday, MS, RD, LDN, associate professor of nutrition, and Amy Joy Lanou, PhD, director of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health and professor in the joint Place-Based Health Program at UNC Asheville, were part of the Task Force on Healthy Aging that developed 12 actionable recommendations supported by 30 total strategies for improving social connections, falls prevention, food and nutrition security, and mobility among aging North Carolinians.  

Rebecca Fry, PhD, Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor and Interim Chair in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, was named to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). Fry will also serve on the Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee. She, along with seven other new SAB members, were selected by Administrator Michael S. Regan to provide sound scientific advice to EPA leadership to help advance the agency’s mission.

David J. Weber, MD, the Charles Addison and Elizabeth Ann Sanders Distinguished Professor of medicine and pediatrics at the UNC School of Medicine and professor of epidemiology at the Gillings School, received the 2023 Edward Kidder Graham Faculty Service Award. The Award was established in 2010 to recognize outstanding service by a member of the voting faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill. In addition to his faculty roles, Weber is associate chief medical officer at UNC Health Care and medical director in the Department of Infection Prevention at UNC Medical Center.

Mya Roberson, PhD, MSPH, assistant professor of health policy and management, has received a Career Development Award from the American Association for Cancer Research in Partnership with Victoria’s Secret and Pelotonia, and was featured as part of a series of profiles on 10 Global Fund recipients. The VS Fund invests in the next generation of women scientists who are committed to improving outcomes for women’s cancers. Roberson leads research aimed at improving cancer outcomes for Black women, focusing specifically on genetic testing.

Hans Paerl, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of marine sciences and environmental sciences and engineering, co-edited a new book titled Climate Change and Estuaries, which provides state-of-the-art coverage of climate change effects on estuarine ecosystems from local, regional and global perspectives. The chapters consist of comprehensive studies in coastal, estuarine and marine sciences, climate change, and coastal management and provide an extensive international collection of data in tabular, illustrated and narrative formats useful for coastal scientists, planners and managers.

Matt Nielsen, MD, MS, professor and chair of the Department of Urology, director of quality for UNC Faculty Physicians, and adjunct associate professor of epidemiology and health policy and management at the Gillings School, has been appointed to the National Quality Forum (NQF) Diagnostic Excellence Committee under the NQF Advancing Measurement of Diagnostic Excellence for Better Healthcare Initiative.

Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD, MA, assistant professor of health policy and management at the Gillings School, received the 2023 Gillings Faculty Award for Excellence in Health Equity Research. Her specific areas of research focus on examining health care quality and access, policy impacts on access to care, the impact of social determinants and fundamental causes on health services, and health and health care equity as both a process and an outcome.

John W. Hatch, DrPH, ‘74 a W.R. Kenan Jr. Professor emeritus of health behavior, was honored by the Caucus on Public Health and the Faith Community (CPHFC) for his innovation and dedication to teaching, training, research and development related to health promotion and disease prevention. Hatch’s leadership in the Community Health Centers movement and faith communities has been a model for decades. The Caucus was established in 1996 with a mission to assist the American Public Health Association (APHA) members and diverse faith communities in understanding the value and vital role that faith plays in healing, health promotion and disease prevention. In February, the Gillings School also announced the John W. Hatch Scholarship Fund, which will support graduate students in the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Department of Health Behavior with an interest in working for Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Morris Weinberger, PhD, the emeritus Vergil N. Slee Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Quality and Management, was presented with the governor’s Order of the Long Leaf Pine award — one of the highest honors reserved for those who have made significant contributions to N.C. and their communities through exemplary service and exceptional accomplishments. His research has focused on clinician- and non-clinician-delivered interventions in primary care, pharmacist care, and transitions in clinical care. Weinberger has also been a committed teacher, leader and mentor at the Gillings School, serving as faculty and later as department chair.

Alumni

Traci Baird, MPH (‘95), president and CEO of EngenderHealth, received the 2024 Harriet Hylton Barr Distinguished Alumni Award, which honors an alumnus or alumna for outstanding achievements and contributions to public health.

Delton Atkinson, MPH ’76/’79 (health policy and management and biostatistics), has received the Harvey E. Beech Outstanding Alumni Award for overall achievement. One of four recipients for 2023, Atkinson received the award during homecoming weekend at the Light on the Hill Scholarship Gala.

This honor recognizes his long career dedicated to providing the foundational information to ensure people across N.C. and the U.S. can benefit from data-informed decisions related to health. Atkinson conducted groundbreaking work that highlighted racial/ethnic health disparities affecting N.C. residents; this work was an impetus for the establishment of the N.C. Minority Health Advisory Council, which advises the N.C. governor and Department of Health and Human Services with the aim of reducing health (and health care) disparities among racial/ethnic minorities and underserved populations.

Jeliyah Clark, PhD, and Josée Dussault, PhD, were selected as recipients of the Lady Mireille and Sir Dennis Gillings Global Public Health Fellowships. The fellowships are awarded to two recent postdoctoral graduates from Gillings, the University of Cambridge, and Concordia University in Montreal to support work at the France-based Institut Pasteur. Clark and Dussault traveled to Paris in early 2023, where they are advancing their skillsets and scholarship in public health and anticipate future training in business and finance that can help them become public health entrepreneurs. Their postdoctoral work in Paris will last until 2025. Clark graduated with a doctoral degree from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering in 2022, and Dussault graduated with a doctoral degree in the Department of Epidemiology in 2022.

Gillings alumni Julci Areza, MPH, and Joanne Johnson, MPH, have been named to the 2023 class of public health fellows through a program run by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The ASPPH/CDC Public Health Fellowship Program aims to support a culturally relevant and applied mentored learning experience for early career professionals with graduate degrees in public health. For the next 12 to 24 months, Fellows’ training will follow eight tracks in 11 different CDC Centers/Institutes/Offices (CIOs). The separate tracks allow the fellows to strengthen their capacity in their areas of interest. Upon completion of the program, fellows will have made useful contributions to projects of national public health importance that are related to the CDC’s mission while gaining skills that will benefit their own public health careers.

Ethan Phillips (BSPH ‘23) was named a 2023 recipient of the John and Diana Barry Scholarship, which provides full funding for graduate study at the University of Oxford.

Karla Buru, DrPH (‘22), was recognized as one of the de Beaumont Foundation’s 40 Under 40 in Public Health in recognition of her work at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Katherine L. Turner, MPH (’96), founding president of Global Citizen, LLC consulting firm, was selected to participate in the Women Leaders for the World Fellowship Program 2023 cohort and join How Women Lead‘s powerful network of global women leaders.

Examples of major grants and awards

Lindsey Haynes-Maslow, PhD, MHA, associate professor of health policy and management and adjunct assistant professor of nutrition, received a $250,000 health equity research grant from the Humana Foundation. The grant supports her work to study a program that delivers meals to low-income senior citizens in their homes during a 12-week period. The program also provides seniors with social-connectedness programs to address mental and physical health.

Rebecca Fry, PhD, Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor and Interim Chair in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, and T. Michael O’Shea, MD, MPH, C. Richard Morris, MD Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics in the UNC School of Medicine, have been awarded $2.1 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue their participation in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program.  The team has been funded for their second phase of their groundbreaking research initiative to optimize the health of children born extremely preterm from 2023 to 2030.  This grant will enable the expansion and extension of the ECHO Cohort’s critical work, particularly focusing on diverse populations. The primary objectives of the ELGAN-ECHO project are to evaluate predictors of exposure to environmental stressors — both chemical and non-chemical — during the preconception period, pregnancy and early childhood.

Andrew Olshan, PhD, Barbara Sorenson Hulka Distinguished Professor in Cancer Epidemiology and interim associate dean of research at the Gillings School, and Tania Desrosiers, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology, were awarded a $2.1 million, 3.5-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. The grant supports the ongoing work of the N.C. Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention (NCCBDRP), one of ten coordinated centers located across the United States that have used CDC funding to study the risks of birth defects. Researchers will collect information on 17 types of major structural birth defects that are associated with high infant mortality and morbidity throughout childhood and beyond and will study environmental, behavioral and genetic causes of birth defects. Their findings will inform clinical and public health interventions meant to lower the rates of birth defects.

Shabbar Ranapurwala, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology, and his team received a new $1.2 million, three-year grant from the CDC to examine the association of state minimum wage policies, COVID-19 and related economic impact payments, and racial discrimination on community violence including firearm violence in the U.S. Violent deaths are responsible for the most years of life lost among people 18 to 50 years old in the U.S. With poverty being one of the drivers of violence, increasing minimum wage may be a potent policy intervention for violence prevention, but minimum wage increase laws have not been evaluated as a community violence prevention method.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have awarded UNC’s Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science (TCORS) $18.6 million to further research into tobacco product regulations. The center is led by Kurt Ribisl, PhD, Jo Anne Earp Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Health Behavior at Gillings, and program leader of cancer prevention and control at UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. UNC TCORS is one of seven institutions by the FDA Center for Tobacco Products in partnership with the NIH as part of the third cohort of the multidisciplinary TCORS, which will continue the work of providing scientific studies that inform FDA’s regulatory authority for tobacco products.

The American Cancer Society has awarded a five-year, $1.2 million Team Science grant to a group of UNC-Chapel Hill researchers who will develop new methods to measure and map cancer screening across N.C. Katherine Reeder-Hayes, MD, is the study’s lead principal investigator, and Jenny Lund, PhD, and Christopher Baggett, PhD, are the team principal investigators and co-direct the UNC Lineberger Cancer Information & Population Health Resource (CIPHR). The grant will fund research designed to facilitate more widespread cancer screening and early detection, culminating in reduced cancer mortality.

Gillings researchers are co-leading a major clinical trial aiming to improve care and support for stroke survivors by testing different interventions to lower their blood pressure to reduce risk of additional stroke or cardiovascular events. Originally launched in 2021 through the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, the $29.9 million, six-and-a-half-year award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) recently expanded to include 11 main trial centers throughout the United States. A team of Gillings researchers, headed by co-principal investigator Wayne Rosamond, PhD, professor of epidemiology, leads the trial’s data coordinating center.

Obituaries

‍(as of March 1, 2024)

Adaora Adimora, MD, MPH, professor of epidemiology at the Gillings School and Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine at UNC’s School of Medicine, passed away Jan. 1, 2024, at age 67. A brilliant and compassionate physician scientist, she left an indelible mark on colleagues and students as well as the broader public health and medical communities. During more than 25 years of clinical practice, she dedicated her career to treating patients with HIV and investigating the epidemiology of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Her work shed light on heterosexual HIV transmission within Black communities, emphasizing the role of sexual network patterns and addressing the impact of macroeconomic and social forces on racial disparities during the U.S. HIV epidemic. Adimora earned a medical degree from Yale University in 1981, later moving to N.C. and receiving a Master of Public Health degree from UNC in 1993. She joined the School as a clinical assistant professor of epidemiology in 1997 and became a full professor in 2009; in 2003 she became the first Black woman to achieve tenure within UNC’s Department of Medicine. In 2019, Adimora was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and a year later she received UNC’s most prestigious faculty recognition, the Thomas Jefferson Award. In 2021, she was recognized as the No. 17 expert in AIDS and HIV in the world. She served in numerous state and national positions including the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Advisory Council. In addition, Adimora generously gave her time to mentor and advise countless students, trainees and junior faculty, nurturing the next generation of health professionals.

Pranab K. Sen, PhD, Gillings School professor emeritus who was on the School’s faculty for more than 50 years, passed away Dec. 31, 2023, at age 86. Sen was a mathematician and longtime biostatistics professor who is widely regarded as a pioneer of nonparametric statistics. Sen is known for independently inventing the Hodges-Lehmann Estimator at the same time as Joseph Hodges, PhD, and Erich Lehmann, PhD, in 1963. In 1968, he invented the Theil-Sen Estimator, a form of univariate and multivariate statistical analyses used to this day. Sen earned a doctorate in statistics and an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Calcutta. He taught at the University of Calcutta and the University of California at Berkeley before joining the faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health in 1965, becoming a Cary C. Boshamer professor in 1982. In 2002, he won the Gottfried E. Noether Senior Scholar Award of the American Statistical Association (ASA). He was the 2010 recipient of the ASA’s Samuel Wilks Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to statistical research and for exceptional service in mentoring doctoral students. In 2011, Sen and his family established the P.K. Sen Visiting Professorship at UNC-CH, which recruits aspiring scholars in statistical science from nations that re still developing their statistics and biostatistics workforce. In honor of his mother, Sen’s family also created the Kalyani Sen Scholarship for International Students, to support international students in their final year of seeking a degree in biostatistics. Donations in his memory may be made online at the Give UNC webpage in support of the Pranab K. Sen Distinguished Visiting Professorship or the Kalyani Sen International Students Scholarship in Biostatistics.