N.C. A&T Faculty Affiliates

Anna Lee – Professor of Psychology

• Expertise: Impact of structural inequities (i.e., racism, sexism, discrimination, and stigma) on health and education outcomes among people of color.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=698100060

Elimelda Ongeri – Professor

• Expertise: Cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the progression of acute and chronic kidney disease.

Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1439120239

Robert Newman – Distinguished Professor

• Expertise: Regulation of phosphorylation-dependent signaling pathways in cellular health and dysfunction.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=2078132320

Ashley Sanderlin – Assistant Professor

• Expertise: Neuroscience – impact of diet and sleep on the aging brain, cognitive impairment, and the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
• Faculty Profile:

Ray Samuel – Professor

• Expertise: Data driven analytics (machine learning) in health disparities including dementia and Alzheimer’s, COVID-19, and Mens health.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1236499059

Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi – Associate Professor 

• Expertise: studying the health effects and health disparities related to multi-pollutant mixtures, Metals, Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), and Persistent infections in lived environments.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=2129386344 

Geleana Alston - Associate Professor – Leadership Studies and Adult Education

• Expertise: Sociocultural intricacies of women, minorities, and disenfranchised groups as adult learners.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=31204044

Shyam Aravamudhan - Associate Professor – Nanoengineering

• Expertise: Nanobioelectronics, Regenerative Engineering, 2D Materials, MEMS Sensors.
• https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=462154692

Christopher Doss - Associate Professor - Director, Mobile Health Interoperability Lab

• Expertise: Mobile health and bioinformatics.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1091657587

Janiya Williams - Program Director/Instructor, Human Lactation

• Expertise: Health Disparities among Black Women/Mothers; Human lactation, Black maternal & child health, community health, health equity.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=353873048

Sung-Jin Lee – Professor of Housing Research

• Expertise: Housing and community needs for older adults aging in place, mixed methods, secondary data analysis with American Housing Survey.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=535447917

Cassandra Germain – Assistant Professor

• Expertise: Functional health and wellbeing in older adults who are at risk for disability and dementia.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=156560771 

LaBarron Hill – Assistant Professor

• Expertise: Psycho-physiological interactions between autonomic nervous system stress, coping and health in health disparities in cardiovascular disease risk. 

Zahra Fazli Khalaf – Assistant Professor

• Expertise:Women's Health and Sexuality Studies 
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=920709891

Kalynda C. Smith – Assistant Professor

• Expertise: Social psychology with expertise in STEM education, identity development research, and impact of social media on health and weight management on Black Women’s health behaviors.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1802602022

Marc Cook – Associate Professor Exercise Immunology

• Expertise: Molecular Exercise Physiology and Immunology with expertise in clinical exercise interventions that assess the role of gut microbial biomarkers in cardiometabolic health and disease (Hypertension and Diabetes).
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1615788980

Troy Purdom - Assistant Professor, Exercise Science 

• Expertise: Metabolic adaptation to exercise and how those adaptations underpin performance outcomes, cardiovascular disease risk, and injury risk.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1421689867

 Shaymaa Abousaad - Research Associate 

• Expertise: Oxidative stress, mitochondria biogenesis, and gut microbiome research on modulating the expression of mediators of pathophysiological conditions such as cancer, diabetes, renal diseases, and neurodegenerative disease.
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Stephanie Teixeira-Poit – Associate Professor of Sociology

• Expertise: Medical Sociology with a focus on mixed-methods research and evaluation examining health disparities among patients with chronic diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and obesity.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1658847140

Carmen Monico – Associate Professor of Social Work

• Expertise:
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=422129784

Grace Gowdy – Assistant Professor of Social Work

• Expertise: Community and family influence on individual upward mobility, with a particular focus on minoritized and marginalized youth.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1847839421

Sharon Parker – Associate Professor of Social Work

• Expertise: Structural, social, behavioral, and biological factors influencing the transmission of infectious diseases with a primary focus on HIV among African Americans and other vulnerable populations.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=483241151

Michelle Vance – Assistant Professor of Social Work

• Expertise: community- engaged mental health disparities researcher whose work centers Black youth, adults, and communities to eliminate mental health service use barriers and increase access to culturally responsive programs and interventions.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1337174512

Keith Coleman - Senior Lecturer and Associate Chair

• Expertise: race and crime, the Death penalty, and student perceptions of the criminal justice system.
• Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=236755898

Celeste Butts-Jackson – Assistant Professor

• Expertise: exploring disparities related to the impact of environmental pollutants on reproductive health, chronic diseases, birth outcomes, and early life cardiometabolic health.

Faculty Profile: TBA

Dakysha Moore-Onsumu – Associate Professor

• Expertise: health disparities in the African American community with a focus on Sickle Cell Disease, HIV/AIDS, and women’s health issues within the context of mass and interpersonal communication messages. Dr. Moore also examines how faith-based institutions in the African American community can play a role in disseminating health information to their congregations.

Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1838386775 

Jason N. Mose – Associate Professor – Coordinator HSM

• Expertise: examining how factors such as community disadvantage or vulnerability, health system structures and environment, health policies, and the diversity of the healthcare workforce impact access and the quality of health services.

Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=1796941681

Department of Nursing

Meng Zhao – Associate Dean of Nursing

• Expertise: healthy aging and enhancing the physical and mental well-being of community elders. community assessment research include the evaluation of the mental health of frontline nurse practitioners during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

Faculty Profile: TBA 

Yvonne Ford – Assistant Professor

• Expertise: Cardiovascular health of African American women who are breast cancer survivors and lifestyle interventions in this population. Genomic predictors of heart failure and epigenetics are also an area of interest.

Faculty Profile: https://www.ncat.edu/employee-bio.php?directoryID=87228866 

Dana Carthron – Associate Professor

• Expertise: board-certified Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. Her program of research focuses on chronic illness self-management among African Americans. Her expertise includes implementation science, health equity, public health, and community-based participatory research (CBPR).

Faculty Profile: TBA