Study Team
Carmen Samuel-Hodge, PhD, MS, RD, LDN
Dr. Samuel-Hodge is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. She first worked as a public health dietitian in the US Virgin Islands for 9 years before moving to North Carolina in 1992. As a researcher, she focuses on designing and testing programs that help adults with diabetes and other risk factors for heart disease change their day-to-day eating and physical activity habits, for healthier living. Dr. Samuel-Hodge has worked extensively with the African American and Black community, tailoring her research to address the cultural and socioeconomic challenges the populations face in managing chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Her interventions emphasize family involvement, community engagement, and culturally appropriate health education. Through her work, she aims to reduce health disparities by improving access to evidence-based programs that support long-term behavior change. Dr. Samuel-Hodge’s contributions have led to significant improvements in participants’ health outcomes, particularly in underserved and racially diverse communities.
Candice Alick, PhD
Dr. Alick is a public health researcher focused on the social and cultural factors impacting behaviors associated with obesity and obesity related conditions. She has over ten years of research experience designing and testing programs focused on addressing nutrition and physical activity habits in underserved populations for chronic disease prevention and treatment. Her expertise includes the development and implementation of behavioral interventions, community-based participation research, and working with underserved populations. She has led and collaborated on several research studies, from behavioral weight loss interventions targeting Black men to faith based adapted rural diabetes prevention programs. Dr. Alick focuses on mixed method approaches to research promoting the use of qualitative methods to inform development and evaluation of behavioral interventions.
Heather Wasser, PHD, MPH, RD
Dr. Wasser is an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill, a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist, and a certified expert in breastfeeding support. She has over 15 years of experience working to improve the health and well-being of families with young children. Her research focuses on creating programs to help parents and caregivers support healthy eating and development in babies and young children. Dr. Wasser is especially interested in how babies’ behavior affects how they are fed, and how mothers, fathers, and grandparents interact with these behaviors. Her goal is to improve feeding practices and child development during the critical first 1,000 days of life, using innovative approaches to provide families with the best possible support.
Thomas Keyserling, MD, MPH
Dr. Thomas Keyserling is a primary care physician who mentors internal medicine residents at the UNC General Medicine Clinic in Chapel Hill. A longtime member of the UNC Institutional Review Board, he has led several major research projects funded by organizations like the NIH, CDC, and NCI, focusing on reducing heart disease and cancer risk. Recently, his work has centered on improving health care for African Americans with type 2 diabetes. He led the New Leaf Diabetes study, aimed at enhancing care for African American women with diabetes, and a CDC-funded project that helped participants in 24 African American churches lower their A1c levels. In 2019, alongside Dr. Carmen Samuel-Hodge, he received NIH funding to study a weight loss program promoting healthy eating to prevent chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Erik Willis, PhD, MPH
Erik Willis, PhD, MPH is a research scientist in the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention as well as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. His research focuses on evaluating cancer and other health outcomes that are influenced by obesity, physical activity and nutrition. Dr. Willis’s research is dedicated to understanding the complex relationships between physical activity, nutrition, and weight, and their impact on health and chronic diseases. His research spans diverse populations, encompassing typically developing children, adults, and individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Anastasia Ivanova, PhD
Dr. Anastasia Ivanova is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has over 20 years of experience in designing and managing clinical trials, with a special focus on early phase trials and studies involving new treatments and biomarkers. Her research also includes trials where participants may respond strongly to placebos. Currently, Dr. Ivanova leads the Data, Modeling, and Coordinating Center for the Precision Interventions for Severe Asthma (PrecISE) Network. This project, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, is working to find new treatments for people with severe asthma. She also co-leads a project aimed at managing back pain research, which focuses on improving treatments for chronic back pain.
Kayla de la Haye, PhD
Dr. de la Haye is an associate professor at the University of Southern California (USC) and leads the Institute for Food System Equity. Her research looks at how the places we live in and the people we connect with affect our health. She focuses on important areas like healthy eating, access to nutritious food, and preventing chronic diseases. By studying how people’s social groups influence their health choices, she shows that the people around us can strongly shape our habits and health. For example, people tend to join social groups that have specific beliefs about health, and these groups can affect how we eat and take care of ourselves. Her work also looks at how families, teams, and communities can solve health problems together. Kayla works with teams from different backgrounds and uses social network analysis and systems science to help improve public health by showing how social connections, communities, and policies all work together to shape our health.
Lisa Pham, MPH
Lisa obtained her Master of Public Health Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She worked as a Research Assistant for the Med South Lifestyle Program and managed recruitment, enrolling over 250 participants, and maintained data integrity by overseeing data entry in REDCap. Lisa supported website user testing and created resources to improve usability for health professionals. Her role also included qualitative data transcription and writing assistance. Additionally, Lisa worked with the Healthy Opportunities Pilot to provide medically tailored meals for North Carolina’s rural communities, preparing and evaluating approximately 100 nutritious meals weekly, guiding kitchen staff, and conducting taste tests to refine recipes.
Chasity Newkirk, MPH, RD, LDN
Chasity has been a registered dietitian for over 15 years, specializing in nutrition coaching for weight management and chronic disease prevention/management along with fitness program planning. Her approach to food is that “all foods can fit, in moderation.” Chasity is passionate about empowering individuals to begin making small gradual lifestyle changes that, over time, will lead to permanent health and wellness improvements that will last a lifetime. In addition to everything nutrition, health and fitness related, she enjoys candles, traveling, shoes, watching cooking shows, and most importantly being a mom to her son, TJ.
