Alice Ammerman
Director
Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Mildred Kaufman Distinguished Professor
Department of Nutrition
Gillings School of Global Public Health
Dr. Ammerman’s research focuses on the design and testing of innovative clinical and community-based nutrition and physical activity intervention approaches for chronic disease risk reduction in primarily low-income and minority populations.
As Director of UNC’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (a CDC Prevention Research Center) for over 15 years, she has strong state and national research and practice collaborations addressing intervention and policy development, program implementation, and dissemination. Her research experience includes extensive cultural adaptation of nutrition and physical activity intervention materials and interventions at all levels of the socio-ecologic model, with a particular focus on the southeastern US. She served as PI of the NHLBI Center for Population Health and Health Disparities (CVD focus) and Director of the Community Connections Core for the Center for Diabetes Research Translation, with a focus on American Indian populations. She was PI or Co-PI of the Center for Training and Research Translation, charged with identification, translation, and dissemination of evidence-based interventions for obesity prevention.
Additional research interests focus on school nutrition policy, culinary medicine, sustainable food systems to promote healthy food access, and social entrepreneurship as a sustainable approach to prevention. Dr. Ammerman is a recognized leader at the campus, state, and national levels, serving on many advisory and review panels, including the N.C. American Indian Health Board, N.C. Rural Health Leadership Alliance, NCGrowth, and as co-lead of the CDC NOPREN (Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network) Rural Food Access Working Group. She served previously on the NIH study section for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health and continues as an ad hoc reviewer.
Alice’s public health interests extend beyond the office, including caring for elderly relatives, serving on community boards, and actively participating in the local food system (gardens, farmers markets, co-ops and cooking).