Faculty
Epidemiology Faculty
Program Faculty
Ahmed Arif, Ph.D., MBBS, is a Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Ph.D. programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Sciences in the Department of Public Health Sciences. Ahmed’s research area of expertise is occupational and environmental epidemiology. His current research interests include studying occupational risk factors of mental illnesses, occupational and even occupational lung diseases, rare and orphan diseases, and spatial epidemiology. aarif@uncc.edu
Shi Chen, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Research interests: Infectious disease modeling. schen56@charlotte.edu
Robert Cramer, Ph.D., is the Irwin Belk Endowed Professor of Health Research in the Department of Public Health Sciences. His PhD in Clinical Psychology includes advanced psych-law and quantitative methods training. Dr. Cramer conducts research in suicide prevention, hate crimes, LGBTQ+ health, military mental health, collegiate mental health, measure development, victimology, training interventions, and the intersection of social science, law & policy. rcramer4@uncc.edu
Laura Gunn, Ph.D., Associate Professor; Director of Health Analytics; Director of Health Analytics and Outcomes Research Academy (HAnORA), Department of Public Health Sciences. Research interests: Applied, interdisciplinary, and collaborative biostatistics, health outcomes research, analysis of big data randomized trials, program evaluation, community-based participatory research with local partnerships, health disparities. laura.gunn@uncc.edu
Rajib Paul, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences. Research interests: Bayesian statistics and spatial and spatio-temporal statistics with applications in epidemiology, health policy, and environment; Bayesian nonparametric and robust nonparametric methods for large datasets and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based research. rpaul9@uncc.edu
Michael E. Thompson, MS, DrPH, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Public Health Sciences. He is trained in health services research and program evaluation, including the application of epidemiologic methods in health services research. His professional practice focuses on competency-based workforce development and competency assessment as well as the design and evaluation of community-driven programmatic interventions, domestically and globally. Consequently, his research portfolio primarily addresses reproductive/maternal and child health, health equity and social determinants of health, and health care quality considerations. methomp1@charlotte.edu
Rafael Felipe Da Costa Vieira, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of One Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences and CIPHER at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Vieira’s research focuses on the ecoepidemiology of ticks and tick-borne diseases (TBD), genetic diversity of TBD pathogens, tick microbiome, pathogen discovery, and One Health. Over the last 12 years, his research has focused on zoonotic diseases, with an emphasis on the epidemiology of vector-borne and transboundary infectious diseases and genetic diversity of TBD pathogens. rvieira@charlotte.edu
If you are interested in becoming the program faculty, please contact Ahmed Arif, Director of PhD programs in Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, aarif@charlotte.edu
Affiliate Faculty
Raynard Washington, Ph.D. is the director of the Public Health Department, one of four departments that make up the Mecklenburg County Health and Human Services Agency. He is responsible for managing all public health and environmental health activities in Mecklenburg County.
Jean-Claude Thill, Ph.D. is a Knight Foundation Distinguished Professor of Geography In the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte. His research focuses on spatial modeling, data mining, 3D visualization, indoor facility location modeling, and machine learning in geospatial organization. jfthill@uncc.edu
Vishnu Prabhu, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at UNC Charlotte. His primary research interest is data-driven decision-making in healthcare, where he combines human factors and mathematical modeling to improve patient, physician, and system outcomes. He is also passionate about utilizing IoT devices (AR, VR, etc.), wearables, digital health tools, and non-pharmacological techniques to address pain, anxiety, and mental health issues and has conducted multiple clinical trials.
vgirisha@charlotte.edu.
*All faculty members In the Department of Public Health Sciences with graduate standing are, by default, considered affiliate faculty. If you are interested in becoming the affiliate faculty, please email your CV to Ahmed Arif, Director of PhD programs in Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, aarif@charlotte.edu