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Dr. Wanda K. Nicholson is the Director of PoWER and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Nicholson is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and a perinatal epidemiologist. She is the Director of the Diabetes and Obesity Core at the UNC Center for Women’s Health Research and a research fellow in the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research and the UNC Diabetes Center. Her research efforts focus on developing and implementing innovative models of medical care for women across the lifespan, but with a particular focus on diabetes and obesity. Dr. Nicholson’s ultimate goal is to break the trans-generational cycle of diabetes and obesity by developing interventions for the pre-conception period and pregnancy.
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The Team
Dr. Anissa I. Vines is a Co-Investigator of the COMPARE-UF Study and is an assistant professor of epidemiology and a member of the social epidemiology program in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC. Dr. Vines is affiliated with several research centers where she contributes expertise in health equity education, research, and community engagement. She has extensive experience developing and leading initiatives to reduce and eliminate health disparities through research engagement with the community; programs to train health disparities scholars; and the development and use of innovative research methods and approaches. Her epidemiological research centers on understanding the effects of stress and coping on chronic disparate conditions such as uterine fibroids, obesity and Type 2 diabetes. She has examined multiple stressors, especially perceived racial discrimination, using the Telephone-administered Perceived Racism Scale that she developed for epidemiologic use, and using peer support as an approach in her community-engaged scholarship to address cancer disparities.
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Dr. Andrea K. Knittel is a Co-Investigator of the Compare-UF study. She is an Assistant Professor and Program Director for Incarcerated Women’s Health in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the ways in which involvement in the criminal justice system affects the lives of women and their partners, particularly in terms of sexual and reproductive health and on attitudes surrounding HIV prevention. Dr. Knittel sees patients as a general obstetrician-gynecologist at UNC and at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women.
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Dr. Mary Kimmel is a partnering physician for the Healthy Transitions Clinic and a Clinical Assistant Professor and Medical Director of UNC’s Perinatal Psychiatry Inpatient Unit. Her clinical expertise is in treating women’s mood and anxiety disorders and in treating psychiatric disorders and other mental health issues during pregnancy and the postpartum time period. Dr. Kimmel’s research interests include the study of hormonally-mediated mood and anxiety disorders, the connection of depression and/or anxiety and excessive weight gain during pregnancy and the postpartum time period, the transmission of stress and obesity from mother to child, and the connection between perinatal depression/anxiety and obstetric outcomes such as preterm birth and infant outcomes such as childhood obesity.
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Sarah R. Hoffman is a former research assistant with COMPARE-UF and a graduate of the doctoral program in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a concentration in Pharmacoepidemiology. Since 2013, her main focus has been on the prevention and treatment of uterine fibroids. She is a past employee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) working on a variety of epidemiology- and public health- related projects using large health care databases to answer critical questions for the nation’s health. She played a critical role in leading sub-projects of COMPARE-UF that use electronic health records (EHR) from UNC Health Care. In addition, her dissertation work investigated the relationship between oral contraceptive use and later fibroid development in the SELF cohort (Study of Environment, Lifestyle, and Fibroids, housed in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences [NIEHS]).
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Kiira Lyons is the Project Manager for PoWER and currently works on the COMPARE-UF study as well as a weight-loss study involving a version of a Mediterreanean-style diet. Her background is in psychology and she has over seven years of research experience, including both social/clinical research through the Perinatal Research group at UNC as well as educational research with a private firm in Chapel Hill. She is interested in research related to holistic women’s health, involving physiological and psychosocial wellbeing, particularly with respect to women of color.
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Jamie Jackson is a research assistant for PoWER and works primarily with COMPARE-UF, recruiting and enrolling new participants. She is also currently working on B-READY: a study of patient decision aids relating to vaginal birth after cesarean section and repeat cesarean section. Her prior work experience is from the UNC Center for Women’s Health Research’s Maternal-Fetal Medicine Unit (MFMU), where she was a research assistant for multiple ongoing studies relating to high-risk pregnancies. She has been a doula since 2005 and has supported over 150 families during birth. She has an interest in research related to fertility, pregnancy, maternal and child health, post-partum, and breastfeeding.
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Dr. Carmen Samuel-Hodge is the co-Investigator of the SUCCESS Study, has a doctorate in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is a registered dietician. Dr. Samuel-Hodge has worked extensively with maternal and child health, and chronic disease risk reduction programs among minority and undeserved individuals. Her research focuses on behavioral weight loss interventions, weight loss maintenance, clinical and community-based diabetes self-management training interventions among African Americans with type 2 diabetes, and lifestyle interventions using peer counselors (community and church diabetes advisors) to deliver telephone-based program components. She has extensive experience in focus group methodology and her qualitative research has facilitated the design and development of educational materials and measurement instruments for research in African American populations.
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Dr. Deborah Tate is the co-Investigator for GooDMomS and is a cognitive-behavioral psychologist whose primary research interests lie in obesity prevention and treatment and behavioral interventions. She is jointly appointed in the departments of Health Behavior and Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. The two main areas of her research program are: (a) strategies for improving weight loss and (b) the translation of obesity treatment programs using alternatives to clinic-based care often involving new technologies.
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La-Shell Johnson is the former Project Manager for PoWER and played a critical role in the development and implementation of GooDMomS, SUCCESS, and COMPARE-UF. She has a background in psychology and several years of experience conducting health behavior research at the UNC Chapel Hill. She moved on from the team to become the Project Director of other clinical studies at UNC.
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Aditi B. Sundaresan is a former research associate for PoWER and played a vital role in the implementation of the COMPARE-UF study, served as health communications lead for DiabetesSistersVoices, and collaborated with Dr. Nicholson to develop the Healthy Transitions Initiative. She is a MPH graduate from George Washington University, specializing in Community-Oriented Primary Care. Her research interests include bridging the gap between public health and primary care for sustainable health outcomes. She is a future Physician Assistant graduate of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
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Kristin Z. Black is a former graduate research assistant for the SUCCESS Study. She received her MPH from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and obtained her PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill in the Department of Maternal & Child Health. Kristin’s research interests are in preconception health, pregnancy outcomes, health inequities, cancer, and chronic disease. She is particularly interested in chronic disease disparities among women and how chronic disease impacts reproductive health and birth outcomes. She works as adjunct faculty at Eastern Carolina University.
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Akimi Smith is a former research assistant for PoWER and played a critical role in the implementation of the SUCCESS study. Her public health and research interests include maternal and infant health, sexual and reproductive health, women’s health, health disparities, and improving health literacy. She is currently a graduate student at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She is pursuing a MPH in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education and a Certificate in Maternal and Child Health. Her career goal is to work as a Maternal and Child Health Epidemiologist.
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