Carmen Samuel-Hodge, PhD, RD - Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

Director, Evaluation Core
Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

Co-Principal Investigator, Core Research Project
Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

Associate Professor
Department of Nutrition
Gillings School of Global Public Health

carmen_samuel@unc.edu
T : (919) 966-0360
F : (919) 966-3374

1700 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Room 250
CB# 7426
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7426

Dr. Samuel-Hodge is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine.

With a background in biology and nutritional science, she first worked as a public health dietitian for 9 years and later completed her doctoral training in public health nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research has focused on clinical and community-based diabetes self-management training interventions among African Americans with type 2 diabetes, behavioral weight loss interventions, weight loss maintenance, and lifestyle interventions using peer counselors (community and church diabetes advisors) to deliver telephone-based program components. Major research interests include: (1) behavioral issues related to lifestyle behavior change (diet and physical activity) and weight management; (2) intervention research focused on nutrition in chronic disease risk reduction and self-management; (3) health disparities and translational research; (4) family functioning among African American adults living with chronic diseases; and (5) family- and community-based behavioral lifestyle interventions. Dr. Samuel-Hodge has served as the principal investigator on several research projects funded by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)). As a researcher at the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, she is currently the Co-Principal Investigator for the core research project, which involves scaling up HPDP’s Med-South Lifestyle Program. She also serves as a Translational and Implementation Research Specialist at the Granville Vance District Health Department.