Jan M. Eberth, PhD
Director, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Spatial Epidemiology, Social Determinants of Health, Cancer Screening and Treatment, Access to Care, Health Care Quality
Center Faculty & Staff
Elizabeth Crouch, PhD
Deputy Director, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Health Policy, Health Economics, Access to Care in Rural and Underserved Populations
Janice C. Probst, PhD
Director Emerita, Rural and Minority Health Research Center Research Interests: Rural Health Care Delivery, Health Disparities, Potentially Preventable Hospitalization
Demetrius Abshire, PhD, RN
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Obesity Prevention and Treatment, Men’s Health, Rural Health Disparities, Social Determinants of Health
Swann Arp Adams, PhD, MS
Investigator/ Research Interests: Disparities in Cancer from Prevention/Screening to Diagnosis to Long-term Survivorship
Christina Andrews, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Impact of the Organization and Financing of Addiction Treatment on Service Access; Gender, Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Treatment Service Access; Adoption of Medications to Treat Opioid Use Disorder
Nathaniel Bell, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Spatial Analysis, Health Services Research, Social Epidemiology, Injury Epidemiology, Nursing Science, Medicaid
Kevin J. Bennett, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Care Delivery for Vulnerable Populations, Quality Improvement Research
Jennifer Browder, LMSW
Maternal and Child Health Projects Coordinator/ Research Interests: Maternal and Child Health, Community Health, and Mental Health
Monique J. Brown-Smith, PhD, MPH
Investigator/ Research Interests: HIV Intervention and Prevention; Childhood Trauma; Social, Behavioral and Mental Health; and Aging. She is interested in these as separate and intersecting areas of study
Cynthia Calef, MAML, MPH
Program Coordinator/ Research Interests: Cancer Screenings, Community Health, and Minority Health
Pam Gillam
Investigator/Director, Core for Applied Research and Evaluation, Office of Research
Janie Godbold
Program Manager/ Expertise: Pre- and Post-Award Management
Sayward Harrison, PhD
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Improving the health and wellbeing of youth who are impacted by acute and chronic health conditions
Pei-Yin Hung, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Health Disparity, Health Care Quality, Maternal and Child Health, Access to Care, Consumer Choice
Andrew T. Kaczynski, PhD
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Physical Activity, Healthy Eating, Obesity Prevention
Daniel J. Kilpatrick, PhD, MPH, CEPR
Investigator/Research Interests: Environmental Health, Epidemiology, Emergency Management, and Disaster Risk Reduction
Jihong Liu, Sc.D.
Investigator/ Research Interests: Perinatal Epidemiology, Obesity and Physical Activity in Mothers and Children, Health Disparities, Reproductive Health, International Health
Alexander C. McLain, PhD
Investigator/ Research Interests: Problems that Arise in Biomedical Studies with Longitudinal Biomarkers
Melinda A. Merrell, PhD, MPH
Research Assistant Professor/ Research Interests: Rural Health Care Delivery, Rural Hospital Closures, Emergency Medicine, Community Health Development, Social Determinants of Health
Nabil Natafgi, PhD, MPH, CPH
Investigator/Research Interests: Quality of Care and Patient Safety, Performance Measurement and Reporting, Telehealth Effectiveness and Evaluation, Patient-Centered Outcomes
Bankole Olatosi, PhD
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Managing Teams and Conducting Quantitative Analyses, Building System Capacity, Working with Different Stakeholders in Healthcare
Shaun Owens, PhD, MPH
Investigator/ Research Interests: Health and Cancer Communications with Diverse Populations, Technology for Health Promotion and Informed Decision Making in Aging Adults, Smart and Connected Health
Collin Perryman, M.Ed., M.F.H.D
Research Associate/Research Interests: Minority Health and Education, Community Health
Dwayne Porter, PhD, MS
Investigator/Research Interests: Exploring and expanding the increasingly important roles that technology and technological innovations play in monitoring, assessing, modeling, and managing our coastal environmental resources and associated environmental and public health issues.
Stella Self, PhD, MS
Investigator/ Research Interests: Bayesian Spatio-Temporal Modeling, Spatial Clustering Analysis, Disease Forecasting, Random Effects Models, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods
Myriam E. Torres, PhD, MSPH
Affiliate/ Research Interests: Hispanic/Latino Health, International Health, HIV/AIDS
Ebony A. Toussaint, PhD, MPH
Post Doctoral Fellow/Research Interests: Health Policy, Health Services Research, Access to Healthcare, Healthcare Quality, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Nursing Science, and Health Equity in Rural Gullah Geechee Communities
Lauren Workman, PhD, MPH
Investigator/ Research Interests: Community Health Development, Maternal and Child Health, Access to Healthcare, Qualitative Methods
Whitney Zahnd, PhD
Outside Investigator/ Research Interests: Rural Health, Cancer Disparities, Access to Care, Spatial Epidemiology, Social Epidemiology
Graduate Research Associates
Gabriel Benavidez
Research Interests: Healthcare Quality/Access/Utilization, Cancer Screening/Health Outcomes, Chronic Disease Prevention, Causal Inference Methods
Cathryn Murphy
Research Interests: Health Equity in Rural Communities, Disparities in Cancer for Susceptible Groups Across the Continuum, and Systemic Health and Cognitive Barriers to Refugees and Immigrants
Oyeleye Oyesode
Research Interests: Cancer prevention, Eliminating Health disparities among minorities, Health outcomes, and Healthcare Utilization
Radhika Ranganathan
Research Interests: Health Related Quality of Life & Survival Analysis of Patients with Chronic Illnesses especially in those with Cancer and Cardiac Conditions; Health Disparities Research; Application of Quality Management Tools in Patient Centered Research
Nick Yell
Research Interests: Time Series Analysis, Survival Analysis, Quality of Life and Health, Study/Experimental Design
Anja Zgodic, ScM
Research Interests: Longitudinal Data Analysis, Statistical Methods for Joint Modeling, Bayesian Statistics, Machine Learning