Patient Outcomes: Faculty and Staff

(919) 962-0080

bellr@unc.edu

Ronny Bell, Ph.D., M.S., is chair of the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy and the Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor. His research focuses on health disparities in cancer as well as a concentration in chronic disease disparities with an emphasis on rural and underserved populations. As an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe of eastern North Carolina, and Chair of the North Carolina American Indian Health Board, he is particularly interested in factors that contribute to health disparities in American Indian populations.

(828) 250-3916

dmcarpenter@unc.edu

Delesha Carpenter, PhD, MSPH, is a professor and Executive Vice Chair in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. Her research focuses on developing trainings to improve patient-provider communication about sensitive issues, like suicide and substance abuse use disorders. She also runs an active research program in inhaler technique education and mHealth. She is especially interested in improving access to healthcare services in rural areas and directs a practice-based research network for rural community pharmacists.

(919) 962-0106

sdavis81@email.unc.edu

Scott A. Davis, PhD, is a research assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. His research focuses on pragmatic clinical trials testing interventions to improve patients’ use of medications to achieve optimal real-world outcomes, as well as implementation and dissemination of these interventions. Following graduation from the DPOP PhD program in 2018 as a Royster Fellow, he completed an NC TraCS TL1 MOTRD UP postdoctoral fellowship to gain more intensive training in implementation science and dissemination of successful interventions. This training will allow him to work with providers and health systems to improve the quality of patient education about their medications in clinics and pharmacies, in ways that minimize unnecessary cost and time burden to providers and staff. He also works with faculty at MAHEC to design and evaluate innovative programs for improving patient and caregiver activation and engagement with the healthcare system, particularly in relation to the underserved in rural areas.

(919) 966-9480

jel@email.unc.edu

Jennifer Elston Lafata, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also serves as the co-lead for the UNC Cancer Care Quality Initiative and Associate Director in the UNC Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement. She conducts practice-integrated research to understand and improve patient-clinician communication and decision making, particularly in the context of cancer prevention and control.

(919) 966-2747

akinlaw@unc.edu

Alan Kinlaw, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. His research focuses generally on pharmaco-epidemiology and health services research that leverages large and high-dimensional secondary data, including healthcare claims data, clinical registry data, and electronic health records. He studies patterns of medication use and comparative effectiveness and safety, related to antibiotic stewardship as well as several other substantive areas.

gratru@live.unc.edu

(919)843-3013

jdniznik@email.unc.edu

Joshua Niznik, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He is also an assistant professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. Niznik is a geriatric health services researcher with clinical training in the pharmaceutical sciences. His research interests are focused on evaluating the quality of medications in older adults to improve the safety of medication use in this population.

(919) 843-4071

megan.roberts@unc.edu

Megan Roberts, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy and the Director of Implementation Science in Precision Health and Society at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Her research focuses on evaluating and improving the implementation of genomic medicine. In particular, she is interested in implementation research aimed at improving quality of care and reducing racial disparities in cancer prevention and treatment.

(919) 962-6342

aseyerle@email.unc.edu

Amanda Seyerle, PhD, MSPH, is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy and faculty with the Carolina Health Informatics Program (CHIP).  Her primary research interests are in understanding the ‘omics of variable drug response and the role of ‘omics and gene-environment interactions in health disparities. A critical part of this work involves expanding existing genomics research to underserved populations so that policies surrounding personalized medicine are based on more representative samples.

(919) 962-0079

betsy_sleath@unc.edu

Betsy Sleath, PhD, is the Regional Associate Dean for Eastern North Carolina and the George H Cocolas Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She is a senior research fellow and director of the Child and Adolescent Health Program at the Cecil G Sheps Center for Health Services Research. She is also an adjunct professor of health policy and management and epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is the recipient of the 2018 Research Achievement Award in the Pharmaceutical Sciences from the American Pharmacists Association. Sleath and her team co-developed a website with youth for youth called “Information for the Evolving Teenager” (iuveo.org) that has tools they can use to be more involved in their health care.

lspees21@live.unc.edu

Lisa Spees, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy. At Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCCC), she is the Director of Cancer Health Assets and Needs Assessment (CHANA) in the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement, an Associate Member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program, and a member of the Culture, Climate, and Training Committee within the Lineberger Equity Council.

(919) 966-3387

kathleen_thomas@unc.edu

Kathleen C Thomas, PhD is Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Research and Graduate Studies in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy, Senior Fellow at the UNC Cecil G Sheps Center for Health Services Research and Adjunct Associate Professor in Health Policy and Management, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is a behavioral economist and mental health services researcher whose work focuses on three areas: 1) disparities in access to care, 2) health insurance policy, and 3) patient self-efficacy (confidence managing health and health care use). All three areas inform pharmaceutical outcomes and policy. She conducts patient-engaged work with multidisciplinary research teams and creative data compilation to accomplish scientific breakthroughs. The combined learning in these three areas is synergistic, with the goal to improve access and quality of mental health services. You can read more about her on-going research on her lab page.

(919) 843-9834

ckalino@email.unc.edu

Carolyn Thorpe, PhD, MPH is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. She conducts research to evaluate and improve prescribing quality and safety and medication adherence in older adults with multiple chronic conditions.

(919) 225-2747

joshua.thorpe@unc.edu

Joshua M. Thorpe, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigator (Co-I) on NIH-funded studies including appropriate medication use and prescription safety, regulating licensed nursing practice in nursing homes, and disparities in healthy behaviors and preventive health behaviors in older adults with responsibilities for elder care.